dent Grant, in 1869, to appoint him as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Washington Territory. Less than a year afterwards, by unanimous recommendation of the members of the Territorial Legislature, he was appointed Chief Justice of that court; and at the expiration of that term he was re-appointed Chief Justice. During his last term he was nominated by the Republican party and elected Delegate to Congress, to which position he was re-nominated and reelected. He served as a member of the Council in the Territorial Legislature (the equivalent of a State Senate); as Mayor of Seattle for one term; as Regent of the University of Washington for ten years, and all that time as Treasurer of the Board; as Corporation Counsel of Seattle (at that time styled City Attorney); and as one of the three judges of the Superior Court of King County from January 1897 to January 1901. These public trusts were discharged by Judge Jacobs with entire fidelity and with marked ability. His reputation as an effective public speaker imposed many semi-public duties upon him. In Jackson County, Oregon, he was selected to deliver the memorial address on Abraham Lincoln; in Seattle he rendered the like service after the assassination of James A. Garfield. Masonic and Odd Fellows' Lodges, Literary Societies, County and State Bar Associations, availed themselves of his talents, learning and eloquence. From May 1888, to the end of his life, he was the President of the King County Bar Association. In 1908 he published a volume of Memoirs containing many interesting, amusing and instructive incidents of a life of eighty years or more, fifty-six of which had been spent in Oregon and Washington. The work was done in his eighty-first year. From a survey of that period he was greatly impressed with the fact that in intellectual and moral growth, in material progress, in human amelioration, in increase of population, in the volume of business, in glorified inventive triumphs, as well as in religious beliefs shown in the substitution of love for fear, as the true basis of obedience to God and his laws, the world had moved and was still moving forward to a higher and nobler plane of civilization. There was no taint of pessimism in that Grand Old Man. An analysis of his strong and interesting character must be omitted for want of time; but this sketch would be wholly inadequate without a word as to the views of such a man on the greatest of all questions and mysteries-that of a man's eternal destiny and his relation to the universe. Pantheism is the word that most nearly describes his religious views. His own language is: "I believe in that system of religion which produces in its practical operation, the best man and the best woman, the best husbands and the best wives, the best fathers and the best mothers, the most affectionate and obedient children, and the more honest and patriotic citizens and public functionaries. I care not what you may call it; by its. fruit or practical results it should be judged. This is the Bible rule, and it is eminently practical and just. I further believe in the existence of an allwise Creator of all things-the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. I do not believe in him as a Supreme Ruler located at some distant point in an immense Universe, but as an omnipresent God. I believe in the immortality of man-not of his physical nature, but of that divine emanation breathed into the nostrils of man by his Creator that made him a living soul. It was an emanation from God and cannot die." Judge Jacobs' favorite poet, Lord Byron, expressed the same sentiment in other words "My altars are the Mountains and the Ocean- Who hath produced and will receive the Soul." So lived among us one of the great men of the Pacific Coasta profound lawyer, an able judge, a ripe scholar, an eminent orator, a philosophicial thinker, a charming raconteur, a sunny soul, a most useful citizen, a delightful companion, a faithful public servant, a loving husband and father, whose memory will be cherished by his brethren of the Bench and Bar of Washington. CHARLES W. CORLISS In Seattle on June 21st, 1914, Charles W. Corliss died. He was a native of Minnesota and was graduated from Carlton College at Northfield in that state. He was forty-eight years old. His health had not been rugged for some years and he had virtually abandoned the practice of law and become interested in real estate investments in Western Washington. On what he considered the recovery of his health, he returned to practice in Seattle. He was always active in young men's organizations, religious and political, and was an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Seattle. He is survived by seven children and his second wife. He was a man of excellent character and an honor to the Bar. NILS SODERBERG In Seattle on June 23rd, 1914, Nils Soderberg, aged sixty-four, died quite unexpectedly. He had come to Seattle twenty-six years previously and had been actively identified with many notable criminal cases there. He was a native of Sweden and came to America when twenty-two years old. He lived in Chicago for a time and moved thence to Carson City, Nevada, where he took up the study of law while working as a reporter on a newspaper. He practiced law in Nevada and California until his removal to Seattle about 1887. He was soon made Justice of the Peace and gave general satisfaction in that office; his familiarity with the principles and the practice of the law gave him a great advantage over any of his predecessors in that position. After retiring from the Justice Court, The practiced in Seattle for several years. A noted case in which he was engaged will be remembered as the Nordstrom case, in which The waged a long fight, with James Hamilton Lewis as his associate. Judge Soderberg was lured to Nome by the gold discoveries there, and he practiced law in Nome for a number of years; after which, in following up an important Nome case which was to be tried in Illinois, he entered upon the practice in Chicago at the very time that James Hamilton Lewis was the Corporation Counsel of that City. After practice of about four years in Chicago, he returned to Seattle; but business in California called him to San Francisco, where he remained a few years. He then returned to Seattle and opened up an office here as well as a branch office in Bremerton. He was a well read, acute and able lawyer. His health recently gave way and for a month or two before his death he was unable to carry on business. He raised a large family and was very much esteemed by all who knew him. He was a man of brilliant qualities and was an instructor in Languages in Sweden when he was only fourteen years of age. He is survived by a widow, a son, and four daughters. JESSE P. HOUSER In Seattle on July 8th, 1914, Jesse P. Houser, Judge of the Superfor Court for Skagit and San Juan counties, and a resident of Mount Vernon since 1890, died at the Minor Hospital after undergoing an operation on June 30th for a trouble from which he had suffered for nine years, due originally to an accident while hunting. He was 'born in November 1864. He removed with his parents to Kansas at an early age and was educated in the public schols of that state. He practiced law in Hutchinson, Kansas, before coming to Mount Vernon. In 1896 he was elected Judge of the Superior Court for Skagit and San Juan counties and served the full term. In 1912 he was again elected to the same position. He is survived by his wife and son. CHRISTOPHER C. GOSE At the age of fifty-one, in the City of Walla Walla, on July 14th, 1914, Christopher Columbus Gose died of ptomaine poisoning after a week's illness. He was a native of Missouri and came as a boy to Walla Walla with his parents, who both survive him. In 1892 he was elected Sheriff of Walla Walla County. In 1895 he served in the State Legislature and that year was admitted to the Bar. The members of this Association will remember the splendid address he delivered as our President. Of the many warm tributes to his memory which appeared in the public press, I select an editorial from the Walla Walla Union of July 14th: "In the death of C. C. Gose, or "Lum," as he was familiarly called, the community has lost a good citizen, the legal fraternity of the state one of its brightest minds, and a large circle of friends will miss his genial, wholesouled, companionable comradeship. Reared from childhood in the same valley where, quite suddenly, he was taken off in the prime of life, his career has been an active one. At an early age he was chosen Sheriff of Walla Walla County, proving at once the confidence of the people in his ability and honesty, and the devoted loyalty of his friends, who were responsible for his candidacy. "He served in the Legislature of the State with honor and distinction, and he always held a position of commanding influence in the political party of his choice. It was as a lawyer that he was distinguished most and his high standing in his profession was at once his greatest pride, and the greatest tribute to his memory. His service as President of the Washington State Bar Association was an honor he richly prized, and well deserved. "The world is better for "Lum" Gose having lived in it; it is sadder today because of the untimely end of his earthly career." Every mark of public respect was paid to his memory by the Court, the Bar and the citizens generally of Walla Walla. I cannot forbear quoting these words from a noble eulogy on him by Francis A. Garrecht, the United States District Attorney for Eastern Washington, who said: "I knew Mr. Gose since childhood and during all the years we were close friends. He was reared and educated at Walla Walla and at the time of his death was regarded as one of the ablest lawyers of the State. "He was possessed of a varied and extensive knowledge, had pronounced views on every subject of interest, was frank and outspoken in his opinions and gifted in argument to a remarkable degree. "Mr. Gose was a strong character, who followed his convictions with courage and left the impress of his forceful personality upon his fellows. "While he was much admired for his intellectual attainments, it was for the virtues of the heart that he was loved. He was de votedly attached to his family, and as instancing this close affection it was said of him that he never attended a ball game (which as an enthusiast he did often) without being accompanied by his little 10-year-old son, and they were chums in charming comradeship. "A host of friends will miss his genial companionship, and from the depth of my own soul's feelings I know that his home city will mourn his untimely death universally and sincerely." "May he rest in peace." WELWOOD G. MURRAY In an automobile accident in Seattle on the 11th day of July, 1914, Welwood G. Murray, a young practitioner, lost his life. He had just been invited by a friend, owner of a machine, to come in and take a ride with him and the friend's companions. He accepted the invitation. At a sharp turn on the road the machine skidded, went over a bridge, and Mr. Murray and one of the companions were instantly killed, while a second companion, at this writing is still unconscious. Mr. Murray was born in Detroit, Michigan, on April 12th, 1890. He got his preparatory education at Bethany College, West Virginia, and the Seattle High School;, after which he attended Leland Stanford, Junior, University at Palo Alto, California, a course which he finished at the University of Washington, his parents having in the meantime removed to Seattle. He was graduated in the Law Department of the University of Washington and was admitted to the Bar in May, 1914. He had just entered upon active practice when the unfortunate accident occurred. He was a young man of excellent character and with every prospect of a bright career at the Bar. WINTHROP BARTLETT PRESBY Winthrop Bartlett Presby died at Goldendale, Klickitat County, Washington, June 19, 1914, his death being due to nerve exhaustion from which he had suffered for about a year. W. B. Presby's ancestors came from Ireland and were among the first settlers of the town of Bradford, New Hampshire. The family name at the time was Presbury but was subsequently changed by Mr. Presby's grandfather to Presby. Mr. Presby, son of Colonel Mason B. Presby and Elizabeth Presby, was born at Bradford, New Hampshire, April 20, 1859. For a number of years Mr. Presby engaged in teaching school in the state of New Hampshire; in 1883 he entered Dartmouth College, graduating in 1887. In the autumn of that year he came to the State of Washington, settling at Goldendale, which place was his residence until death. The next year he was elected principal of the Goldendale school but soon after resigned this position to enter upon the study of law in the office of the late Judge R. O. Dunbar. At this time he assisted materely in drafting the Constitution of the State of Washington. Between the years of 1889 and 1907 Mr. Presby served the people of his community in various capacities; first, as city clerk and re |
