REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON OBITUARY.

Hon. John Arthur, Chairman.

North Yakima, August 10th, 1916. Hon. Mack F. Gose, President Washington State Bar Association: Dear Judge: Your Committee on Obituaries regrets having to report that more than thirty of our brethren have departed this life since the meeting of the Association last year. On account of the necessity of virtually combining the proceedings of two years in one volume, we have been warned to make the sketches of our departed brethren as concise as possible. This circumstance will excuse the imperfections of our report.

Respectfully submitted,

JOHN ARTHUR,

Chairman.

JESSE A. WILLIAMS.

Mention of the death of Jesse A. Williams was omitted in last year's report. He was born in Pontiac, Michigan, April 18, 1866, and died in Seattle on April 11, 1915. He attended the grammar and high school at Pontiac, and the Law School at Detroit, and afterwards took a post-graduate course at Ann Arbor. After his graduation from Ann Arbor he began the practice of law at Pontiac and some time later opened an office in Chicago. Climatic conditions induced him to remove to Spokane, where he practiced law for about eighteen months, and later removed to Seattle, where he continued the remainder of his life. He was a highly respectable Afro-American and much liked by the brethren of the Seattle bar.

J. B. ABRAMS.

In Bellingham on August 22nd, 1915, J. B. Abrams, a well-known member of that bar, died. He was born at Naples, Scott County, Illinois, December 3, 1863; educated in the public schools; taught school for six years; was graduated from the Union College of Law at Chicago and entered the practice at Taylorville, and there continued until his removal to Bellingham in 1904. He was a member of the Washington Legislature in the session of 1907. In September, 1913, he was stricken with a lingering illness which compelled his retirement from active practice and ended in his death.

ISAAC R. SPILLMAN.

In Seattle on September 2nd, 1915, Isaac R. Spillman died of paralysis at the age of fifty-eight years. He had served as judge of the Circuit Court in his district in Illinois, and was prominent in the Democratic politics of that state before removing to Washington.

BENJAMIN J. SHIPMAN.

In Seattle, September 3rd, 1915, Benjamin J. Shipman died of paralysis at the age of sixty-five years. Seven years previously he had removed from St. Paul to Seattle. In St. Paul he was a writer for the publications of the West Publishing Company, some of whose law books appeared in his name. His father had been a member of the distinguished New York law firm of Shipman, Choate & LaRocque, and afterwards became United States judge.

JOSHUA M. WIESTLING.

September 14, 1915, in Seattle, an old-time practitioner, Joshua M. Wiestling died at the age of seventy-seven years. He came to Seattle in 1889 from Harrisburg, Pa. He served in the Civil War and was always active in the affairs of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was the father of Frank B. Wiestling, an active member of the Seattle bar.

ERNEST C. MacDONALD.

Born in Edinburg, Scotland, on August 14, 1873, and removing thence with his parents to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later to Minneapolis, where his father became prominent as an author of several medical and surgical text books, Ernest C. MacDonald died in Seattle on September 30, 1915. He began the study of law in Aberdeen, South Dakota, under Judge M. J. Gordon, formerly of the Supreme Court of Washington, whom he accompanied a year later to Olympia, where he continued his studies and was admitted to practice in 1893. He served meanwhile as private secretary to Governor Elisha P. Ferry, and was continued in the same position under Governor John H. McGraw until 1894, when he removed to Spokane to enter upon active practice. He became assistant attorney general of the state under John D. Atkinson in 1905-1909, and assistant United States district attorney under Oscar Cain, 1910-1912. He removed to Seattle in 1913. His premature death came as a great shock to his brethren at the bar, who had the highest esteem for him.

JOHN C. STALLCUP.

A prominent figure in Tacoma for many years was John Calhoun Stallcup, who died in that city on October 21, 1915, at the age of seventy-four years. He was born in Ohio on February 26, 1841, and educated in Mount Union College, Alliance. He was city attorney

of Denver, Colorado, from 1881 to 1885, and justice of the supreme court of that state in 1887-1889. At the close of this service he removed to Tacoma, where he was elected judge of the Superior Court, serving from 1892 to 1896. As a member of the state board of audit and control he served from 1897 to 1900. He was active in the civic affairs of Tacoma and highly esteemed as a man of character, courage and integrity.

HERMAN D. CROW.

On October 22, 1915, in Olympia, our beloved former Chief Justice, Herman D. Crow, died of cancer. He was born in Delaware, Ohio, April 15, 1851. His father was principal of the preparatory department and instructor in Latin and Greek in the Ohio Wesleyan University.

While yet a child, his parents removed to Urbana, Ohio, where his father began the practice of law. Herman was educated in the Urbana High School and Ohio Wesleyan University, from the latter of which he was graduated in 1871, in the same class with former Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks and our former Governor, Samuel G. Cosgrove. He then returned to Urbana and began the study of law. He was admitted to practice in December, 1873. Spending a year in Texas for the benefit of his health, he returned to Urbana and practiced law there for eleven years, during five of which he was city attorney of Urbana. In 1886 he removed to Winfield, Kansas, and there he practiced law until he removed in 1890 to Spokane, where he formed a partnership with W. E. Richardson, later a judge of the Superior Court of Spokane and Stevens Counties. Judge Crow then became associated with James A. Williams, with whom he remained until his appointment to the Supreme Court by Governor Albert E. Mead on January 19, 1905, and was elected to succeed himself November 6, 1906. He was twice re-elected for six-year terms, the second reelection occurring shortly before his death. Before ascending the bench, he served in the state Senate the unexpired term of Horace E. Houghton, and two years later was re-elected, serving in the sixth, seventh and eighth sessions of the Legislature, where he supported the railroad commission bill and other railway legislation, and was a strong advocate of local option measures. He also supported the Factory act and the Eight-hour bill, making it a criminal offense to employ laborers for more than eight hours on public work. He served as regent of Washington State College for four years under appointment by Governor Rogers. This trust he resigned on being appointed to the Supreme bench. In politics he was a strong Republican and was a presidential elector in 1904. He was married in Delaware, Ohio, in 1877, to Miss Martha Florence Mendenhall. The result of this union was Capt. Denton M. Crow, now practicing law in California.

Judge Crow was deeply beloved by the bar and by his associates on the Supreme bench, and his death was extensively mourned.

THOMAS H. CANN.

A well-known and popular figure in Seattle, Thomas Hart Cann, died on October 25, 1915, at the age of eighty-two years. He was born in Belleville, Illinois, in 1833. He left the town of Carthage in that state in 1854 and crossed the continent to California, whence, six years later, he joined in the gold rush to the forks of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers in Washington Territory, where he found most of the good claims taken. He became a deputy sheriff and later sheriff. He then served as a Wells-Fargo messenger to Portland by way of The Dalles. Following this service, he became one of the early land commissioners of Oregon, and afterwards assistant sec

retary of state. He was admitted to the practice of law in Salem in 1878. He removed to Seattle in 1880. He served there as justice of the peace for ten years and thereafter enterd upon the general practice of law. He became president of the Pioneers' Association of Washington.

JAMES J. MCCAFFERTY.

One of the most popular members of the Seattle bar, James J. McCafferty, died on November 2, 1915. He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, December 2, 1854. Educated in the public schools of that city and in Holy Cross College at Worcester, Massachusetts. He studied for the legal profession in the Law school of Boston University and began practice in Worcester with his father and an uncle. He served several years in the Massachusetts House of Representatives; visited South America in pursuit of health; accepted the chair of English Literature in the American College in Buenos Aires, of which institution he became president in 1880 and so served for several years before returning to the United States. He located in St. Paul and served in many offices of public trust, including United States commissioner for the St. Paul district, and judge of the Circuit Court of Minnesota. He was general counsel for the St. Paul & Minneapolis Interurban Railway Company. Seventeen years prior to his death he removed to Seattle and entered into general practice. A friend who knew him well in St. Paul, as well as in Seattle, M. J. Costello, paid this deserved tribute to him: "Judge McCafferty, as a political orator in his younger days, had few equals. He was an able, conscientious lawyer, but he will be best remembered among his associates, perhaps, as a genial, companionable gentleman, who always looked upon the better side of human life and conduct. He was a true friend, loyal advocate and a high-minded citizen always."

A. L. SLEMMONS.

November 7, 1915, at Ellensburg, A. L. Slemmons, a member of the Kittitas County bar for over a quarter of a century, and a leader in state Democratic politics, died at the age of fifty-one years. He was born at Creston, Ohio, January 31, 1864. He completed his education at Wooster College, Ohio, and came to Ellensburg in 1888. In Ellensburg he was associated with Will Graves in the practice of law until he was appointed as receiver of the United States land office at North Yakima. He was married in 1895 at Omaha, Nebraska, to Miss Jessie Jones, who survives him. He lived in North Yakima for five years and for a time served as a court reporter. Later he returned to Ellensburg and became associated with Edward Pruyn in the practice of law; but for ten years prior