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to go thence by rail to Hannibal and by river to St. Louis, then on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad to her home.

I worked on the ferry boat after this until cold weather. Then I went to Indiana and stayed during the winter. Wife's sister, Mary, died October 6, 1859.

In March, 1860, Ed Arnold, Al, myself and wife started for Nebraska, Ed and Al intending to go to the gold mines in Colorado, and, after getting to Columbus, finding little encouragement or prospect of doing anything, I concluded to go with them, leaving my wife with mother.

PROSPECT FOR GOLD

We arrived in Denver on the tenth day of May, 1860. After camping two or three days, started for Central City by way of Golden.

I located in a cabin with a man named Carter, in Leavenworth Gulch. Worked hard all summer and got just enough gold to buy provisions to live on. Came home about November first with O. B. Selden of Omaha. Made the trip to Columbus in twenty days.

Frank made a trip out to the mountains during the summer with a load of freight. After I came home, mother moved to Omaha with Lute and sisters, Lib and Phon, where she stayed through the winter.

The Pawnee Indians had moved from their location on the south side of the Platte below Fremont in the fall of 1859 to their reservation on the Loup Fork and built their village on the west side of the Beaver, directly south of the present village of Genoa, and were getting an annuity from the government of forty thousand dollars per annum.

This gave the few settlers an opportunity of trading with them to a limited extent and making a little money.

The summer of 1861, I planted considerable corn and built a large sod stable with a large cattle yard, besides putting up a good lot of hay to prepare for keeping the freighters who were to haul supplies to the Indians.

The Civil War broke out in the spring, but few people out in this country expected it to last longer than when cold weather set in, but in this the result shows how little we can predict for the future.

During the summer, Frank and I built a log house and sod stable west of the old hotel building and moved mother back from Omaha into this house. The winter was very severe, a heavy fall of snow and the roads were nearly impassable for a great portion of the time

FRANK BECOMES INTERPRETER

Lincoln was inaugurated president in March, and soon thereafter removed the agent of the Pawnees, Judge Gillis, and appointed a man named Depew. J. O. Rudy, a son-in-law of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was appointed Trader, and from him brother Frank secured a position as clerk and interpreter. A man named Monroe had a contract for hauling a large amount of supplies from Omaha for the Indians, consisting principally of flour. He had six large wagons, each drawn by four yoke of cattle, and made arrangements with me to keep his stock and men on their trips each way, which was a source of help to all of us. The winter was very severe, deep snow and bad roads all winter.

FEBRUARY 7, 1896

Since I commenced writing in this hook, a great affliction has come to me in the loss of my beloved wife, who left this world November 26, 1895, surrounded by all her children and in my loving arms. The world has indeed seemed dark to me since that sad event and, but for the lingering hope born within me that I may see her again in the future, I should certainly consider the creation of mankind a failure.

The balance of the memories written in this book will undoubtedly be very imperfect, for the reason I had depended so much on my life companion for help in recording our lives from her most excellent memory."

FROM MRS. JAMES G. REEDER'S SCRAPBOOK AS PRINTED IN A COPY OF THE COLUMBUS TELEGRAM

MEMOIRS OF JAMES G. REEDER
By Zela Loomis*

In 1932, Judge James G. Reeder recalled incidents of 1882 in Columbus.

On a cold, blustery night in March -- the evening of March 18, 1882, to be exact -- a young man wearing a spring suit and a straw hat stepped off the train into the snow at the Burlington depot in Columbus.

He had just come up from Hutchinson, Kansas, where the weather was warm and the trees were green. In his pocket was twenty-seven dollars in cash; in his head, a legal education, and in his heart, a determination to make good in his chosen profession.

If, in the cold weather and bleak night, he felt any qualms and wished he were somewhere else in that particular moment, no one knew it, for no one here knew him.

Fifty years later everyone in Columbus knew Judge James G. Reeder. He was dean of the Platte County Bar Association and, with possibly one exception, at the time was the oldest attorney in the Sixth Judicial District from standpoint of years of practice. In 1932 he was also the only living ex-judge of the district.

The youth of that bleak night in 1882 had not only achieved against odds that would have discouraged a man of less inherent strength of character, success and financial independence in his chosen profession and prominence in city and state; but, what's

---

*From Mrs. James G. Reeder's Scrapbook as printed in the Columbus Daily Telegram, March, 1932.

more, he had won a place of high esteem in the hearts of his fellowmen.

Judge Reeder always had a fund of interesting stories about early-day characters, incidents and experiences, especially pertaining to the courts and the attorneys, which, having a retentive memory, he recalled with remarkable clarity as to details, and sometimes recounted when in a reminiscent mood. Among them was the story of his own introduction to Columbus.

ALIKE --- BUT DIFFERENT

Alighting from the Burlington train, he made his way uptown along Thirteenth Street --- then devoid of business buildings --- and entered the lobby of a two-story frame hotel, a white building with green shutters. In a chair, near the counter, sat an old gentleman of distinctive appearance, white of hair and somewhat bald. In his hand was a cane. On the floor beside his chair lay a white and rather formidable bulldog. Behind the counter was a younger man whose hair was black.

The young lawyer registered, was advised that they'd have to put him up in the annex over the Columbus State Bank across the street, because the hotel was full that night, .. and then, being informed that the main business district was over on Eleventh Street, he walked across the tracks southward to give the town the "once over."

The dozen saloons with their kerosene lamps burning were the only business buildings lighted at that hour -- ten p.m. Even if he had been inclined to sample their wares, he had no money to spend for such purposes. He merely strolled eastward several blocks to the last of the kerosene street lamps that marked the end of the business district, then back across the tracks northward.

Arriving at a two-story frame hotel, white, with green shutters, he entered the lobby. In a chair near the counter sat an old gentleman of distinctive appearance, white of hair and somewhat bald. In his hand was a cane. On the floor beside his chair lay a white and rather formidable bulldog. There was no one behind the counter as Jim Reeder stepped up and looked at the register to ascertain his room number. He was mystified to find that his name wasn't on the register.

Judge Reeder said: "I turned and looked at the old gentleman, puzzled."

"'What seems to be the matter?' the old man asked.

"'I don't know,' I replied. 'I came in on the Burlington about thirty minutes ago and registered here. I remember seeing you and your white dog. There was a black-haired man behind the counter and some other people in the lobby. Then I went out for a walk and I come back here and my name is not on the register. It's all very strange to me.'

"Then the old gentleman flew into a rage and berated me soundly.

"'You're drunk' he said.

"'I'm not drunk and I haven't had a drink in a long, long time,' I replied. 'What I want to know is what's the matter with this house and why my name is not on that register.'

"'You're looking for the Clother House, but don't make the mistake of calling me old Pap Clother,' the old gentleman said.

"Without realizing it, I had gotten into the Hammond House, which was located where the Meridian Hotel is now, instead of the Clother House, a block west. When I reached the Clother, I told the black-haired man behind the counter --- George Clother --- of my experience.

"'Don't take it to heart,' he said. 'That's Cap Hammond. He and my father hate each other, and even their bulldogs hate each other. Both the old gentlemen are all right. Neither is as bad as the other thinks he is, but they just don't get along together, and you couldn't offer Hammond a worse insult than you did.'"

HE MEETS GEORGE LEHMAN

The Clother House, wanting only transient customers, did not cater to regular roomers, so when he had determined that he was going to stay in Columbus --- not having enough money to go anywhere else --- James Reeder went across the tracks to the Grand Pacific Hotel, the largest hostelry in the city at the time, sought out George Lehman, the landlord, and told him he wanted to board and room there.

"I haven't any money to pay my board, and I don't know when I will have any, but I'm going to make it," Reeder said. "Wait as long for it as you can and when you need the money, I'll raise it somehow and pay you."

"All right, move in. We'll get along," Lehman replied.

"I lived at George Lehman's hotel for six years and Mrs. Reeder and I lived there awhile after we were married, until we went to housekeeping," Judge Reeder said. "I owed George Lehman three hundred dollars before I could pay him much of anything, and it was three years from the day I moved in there before I was able to pay him all, but he never bothered me for the money."

TEACHES SCHOOL, STUDIES LAW

The road to a successful law practice was not paved with roses for young Reeder. Born on a farm adjoining Edinboro, Pennsylvania, January 18, 1858, he had, after receiving his elementary education in a grade school, attended the state normal there, financing his studies by teaching a winter term, in the meantime, in a rural school for twenty-five dollars a month and then a year

in Brady's Bend at the munificent salary of eighty-five dollars a month.

In this job he saved enough so that he was able to enroll at Allegheny College at Meadville, Pennsylvania. During his second year there, he registered as a law student with the law firm of Allen & Rozinweig at Erie, reading law at night and reporting to Mr. Allen about once a week.

After six months of this, the savings were running low, so he seized an opportunity to go to Tennessee and teach school in Mt. Zion, a small town near Memphis, and there he continued his law studies in similar manner by registering as a student in the office of MacBrooks, Greer & Adams. After he had taught a year at Mount Zion, MacBrooks proposed that he go over to Bartlett, where the firm maintained a branch office which one of its members visited a day or two a week, and keep the office open all the time. Inasmuch as he was supposed to pay the firm one hundred dollars a year as tuition and the proposal included an offer to allow him that sum for putting in his time at the office, he readily accepted it, and there, he got his first practical experience in the law, filing several minor cases in the local courts.

Two years of study in a law office and a certificate from his preceptor were required of a law student before he could apply to the court for admission to the bar. After eighteen months with the Memphis firm, Reeder was ready for the examination which he and sixteen other students similarly situated were to take before the three judges of the chancery, circuit and criminal courts in Memphis.

It was a proud day for them when they entered the court room. Anticipating a rather perfunctory examination -- up to that time examinations had been given by bar association committees and everybody who had ever applied had been admitted -- they had exercised the forethought to buy at a local paper house the seventeen pieces of parchment upon which their certificates were to be written. By "ganging" on the dealer, they had induced him to cut the price from the usual five dollars each to about half that figure, and they'd had the clerk of the court write the certificates, all nicely prepared for the signatures of the judges.

A "NICE CERTIFICATE"

The first student called up to the bench, after they had spent three days at their oral examinations, was a man named Priddy, forty years old and a college graduate, who had been in the merchandising business:

"Have you your certificate with you?" Judge Horrigan, presiding, inquired.

"Yes, your honor," Priddy replied, passing it over. The three judges inspected it for a few moments and then passed it back.

"This is a very nice certificate," Judge Horrigan said. "We notice it is written on parchment. It will keep. We advise you to return to your studies for six months, or perhaps for a year. Then, if you pass, we will sign it."

Consternation reigned among the sixteen other applicants. "My hopes were blasted," Judge Reeder said in recalling the incident. He smiles over it now, but it was no laughing matter then. "So when they asked me if I had mine, I replied 'no.' One of the judges asked if I could get one, and I said that maybe the clerk had an extra one that I could get. I went to the clerk's office, talked with him a few minutes, took my certificate out of my pocket, returned to the court room, and the judges signed it."

Judge Horrigan was a busy man, not only holding court, but serving without pay as one of the five commissioners handling the business affairs of the city during the reconstruction period. He had several young lawyers working in his office - also without pay, but acquiring experience: "He offered me a place in his office," Judge Reeder said. "But I had to decline it because I was completely out of funds."

It was September then, and the next month he spent on his cousin's cotton plantation, thirteen miles from Memphis, watching over the place so the darkies wouldn't steal the mules or cotton, or ride the mules all night, as they were prone to do, while his cousin was on a hunting trip in Arkansas. Then, by trying a couple of small lawsuits for a grocer friend, whom he didn't have the heart to charge a fee, but who insisted on paying him seventy-five dollars, he obtained enough money to go back to Pennsylvania to visit his father, who financed him to the extent of one hundred dollars to buy a few law books.

With his books, he went to Hutchinson, Kansas, where he began the practice of law in the employ of an Italian lawyer who also had a newspaper. Earning for his employer between four and five hundred dollars a month while he himself received a mere pittance, just enough to pay the expenses by living economically, he began to cast about for another location. A friend gave him the name of Byron Millet, a Columbus lawyer, and he wrote to Millet. The latter advised him to come to Columbus, painting Columbus as a lawyer's paradise, so it was with high hopes that he dropped off the train here, after having been six months in Hutchinson.

If, in his youthful enthusiasm, he expected to set the world afire right then and there, he got quite another perspective the next afternoon when, after he had met several other local attorneys, he called at the office of Cornelius and Sullivan, on Eleventh Street, and found that they had a table, a few books - hardly more than he had in his trunk - three chairs and a couple of cuspidors. "It's too bad," Cornelius said consolingly. "One of the saddest things I ever saw in my life. To think that you, with as good a suit of clothes as you have, come here in the hope of making a living practicing law. We've been here three years and haven't made enough money to buy books." Not very encouraging, but commendably frank, was Cornelius. He had seen a procession of young lawyers come -- and go. But Reeder was here, and still here fifty years later.

Within a day or two he "got a break." Judge W. S. Geer, a good lawyer despite a severe affliction of rheumatism, was going to take a drive with Mrs. Geer up to Niobrara, the round-trip being a matter of some

three weeks. He made Reeder a proposition to keep his office open during his absence -- an offer that the young lawyer accepted with alacrity.

Casting about for suitable rooms for an office of his own the day before Geer's return, Reeder found them over Samuel C. Smith's real estate office on Twelfth Street. In showing them to him, Smith said, "I've been renting these rooms to young lawyers for several years. All the rent I've gotten has been the six dollars for the one month that each paid in advance." Reeder didn't have quite enough to make the grade, so he parried, "I haven't been accustomed to pay in advance, but I will if you require it." Smith finally agreed to take a chance on the rent for a matter of thirty days.

Reeder wasn't destined to rent Smith's rooms, after all, for Geer invited him to go into partnership with him, which he did but he was destined to marry Mr. Smith's daughter, Miss Lillian Smith. Their wedding took place five years later in San Diego, California, on May 18, 1867, the Smith family having moved to California in the meantime and the young lawyer having managed to save up seven hundred dollars to make the trip to the coast and bring his bride back to Columbus.

Geer had enjoyed an active practice but little new business came in during the first year of their partnership and then, a few months later, Geer died. It was characteristic of Reeder that, when he bought Geer's small law library he paid the widow the full amount that the books would have cost if new, though he could have bought them at a much lower price. Rather, he gave his notes for the amount, as he had no money, but he paid the notes promptly when due, with interest.

ATTORNEYS OF THAT EARLY PERIOD

Though Columbus had a population of only about twenty-five hundred and the surrounding territory was less thickly populated than fifty years later, there were more practicing attorneys in Columbus when Reeder came here than in 1932. The roster of the bar at that time bore the names of M. Whitmoyer, Leander Gerrard, and A. M. Post; Steven McAllister and W. A. McAllister; W. M. Cornelius and J. J. Sullivan; Charles A. Speice, John G. Higgins, W. N. Hensley, Byron Millet, W. S. Geer, George G. Bowman, G. N. Camp, John M. McFarland, and B. R. Cowdery. C. J. Garlow, who had come to Columbus shortly before that time, was studying law in Higgins' office and teaching a rural school, but he was not admitted to the bar until three years later. One by one in the half century that since elapsed, those pioneers of the Platte County Bar have passed on until 1932, of them all, Reeder and Garlow were the only two then living.

Judge Reeder believed that, considered as a whole, more money was taken in by the lawyers in those days than in 1932, and for this reason: Columbus was the distributing point for practically all farm machinery sold in a territory that included several counties to the east, south and west, and extended north and northwest as far as Norfolk and O'Neill. The farmers had little or no cash capital, bought all their machinery "on time," and the implement companies sent their notes to the lawyers here for collection. It was a slow process collecting such accounts then and the banks didn't bother with farm paper.

"I knew one law firm to start suit on between one hundred and one hundred fifty of such notes at one time, and it was no uncommon thing for the established firms to have from one hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars on hand for collection," Judge Reeder said. "During those first years I didn't get much of this business about all I had to do was to look on and wish I were in on it, but I had plenty of time to study." And study he did, for his was not a temperament to court idleness. It was the "starvation period" for him -- that period which all young lawyers know and dread -- but it was "starvation" only in the sense of a meager financial income, for he was filling his mind and memory with the contents of many volumes of law so that when the tide turned and business came his way he was amply prepared to handle it.

FORM PARTNERSHIP MOST INFORMALLY

Reeder's next partnership was formed about three years after Geer's death. W. N. Hensley, who had just dissolved partnership with John G. Higgins, walked into his office one day and remarked casually "I want to go into partnership with you until my appointment as postmaster comes." "All right," Reeder replied, handing him a key to the office.

"The next morning Judge Hensley went on a fishing trip and I didn't see or hear from him for some time," Judge Reeder said in recalling the incident. "Then late one afternoon while I was trying a lawsuit down at the court house, he called up and asked the combination to the safe. I told it to him. It was nearly seven o'clock before I returned to the office and there sat Hensley with thirty-five hundred dollars in currency piled up on the table in front of him.

"'What do you do when you get as much money as this?' he asked.

"Put it in the bank," I replied. "It developed that just after Hensley had reached the office, a farmer whose notes for machinery had been sent to me for collection had come in and paid them. His farm had been sold under foreclosure but somehow he had gotten part of the proceeds and, because I had never pressed him for the money, he had come straight over to pay the obligation. Hensley had phoned for the combination in order that he might open the safe and give the man the notes. In this most informal manner began my partnership with Hensley. It was a very pleasant association, and it ended just as informally when he received his appointment as postmaster nine months later."

A seven-year partnership with J. J. Sullivan ensued which terminated when Sullivan was elected district judge. Then Reeder and I. L. Albert were together for a dozen years, until both became so deaf that neither could use the phone satisfactorily and they agreed that each should form other connections. A partnership of several years with R. W. Hobart was ended when

Reeder was elected district judge in 1904. One term on the bench sufficed for Judge Reeder, as the salary twenty-five hundred dollars a year in those days didn't appeal strongly to an attorney who had four growing children in school, so at the end of his term he went into partnership with Judge Sullivan and Louis Lightner. Sullivan moved to Omaha in 1909 and the firm continued as Reeder and Lightner until 1923. In that year Judge Lightner was appointed to the district bench and Judge Reeder formed with his son, George, the firm of Reeder and Reeder.

JUDGE REEDER'S HOBBY

From his early youth, riding and driving good horses has been judge Reeder's hobby. Mrs. Reeder liked to ride and drive, too. She could handle a spirited horse as deftly as he, and their long rides and drives together through the countryside of a morning or an evening were among their cherished memories.

This is a story as told by Judge James Donahue

JUDGE SULLIVAN ACCEPTS A DECISION

After Judge John J. Sullivan left the Supreme Court bench in 1908, he moved to Omaha, and lived for a while at the old Paxton Hotel. In the course of time, he took on some very important and lucrative legal cases, among which was the Joslyn Estate.

However, his first case in private practice was one for an insurance company which involved an insurance contract, and was pending in the Supreme Court of Nebraska. Judge Sullivan did not consider the case complicated. He simply studied the matter and spent part of a day preparing the brief. In the morning, he dictated the brief to his stenographer and had it filed. He then made the trip to Lincoln on the day assigned for the case, appeared in court, delivered his argument, and returned home. In all, it had taken two days of his time.

In due time, the case was decided in favor of Judge Sullivan's client, and as was the custom then, he received a post card informing him of the judge's decision.

It seemed that the card had arrived in the morning mail before the judge had eaten his breakfast. He sat down and got to thinking about the case and wondered how much he should charge for his work. He wondered if two hundred and fifty dollars would be too much. Then the thought occurred to him that he had been out of private practice for a long time. Possibly five hundred dollars wouldn't be too much to ask. After all, he had won the case for the insurance company.

He was still pondering over the problem as he went downstairs to breakfast. As he was about to enter the dining room, whom should he meet but his old friends and colleagues from Columbus: The Honorable Judge Edgar Howard, Judge A. M. Post, Judge I. L. Albert, and Judge J. G. Reeder. They all went into the old bar, and sat down around a table for a discussion of their respective legal affairs.

Judge Sullivan told them about the case for the insurance company he had handled and that he was in a quandary as to what amount he should charge his client for his work. He said that he had been out of touch with fees for almost six years. After giving them the facts, he asked whether two hundred and fifty dollars or whether five hundred dollars would be a proper fee.

They immediately assured him that five hundred dollars was indeed reasonable, and not to be hesitant in asking for it.

Finally when they were about to leave, their morale boosted considerably Judge Albert spoke up.

"I don't think five hundred dollars is enough," he said. "Why, think of a lawyer of your prestige and your standing with the Supreme Court. Why, seven hundred and fifty dollars is a modest fee."

Some one else spoke up: "I don't believe a thousand dollars is too much to ask."

After a slight hesitation and another toast to the case at hand the fee climbed up to fifteen hundred dollars, then to two thousand dollars, and finally to twenty-five hundred dollars.

One of the judges insisted that Judge Sullivan owed it to the young lawyers to build up the fees, and that his fee would set a precedent.

"Oh, gentlemen," demurred judge Sullivan, "this would scandalize. This is preposterous."

However, his colleagues remained adamant in their viewpoint. They were going to see that Judge Sullivan sent in a bill for twenty-five hundred dollars. In fact, they insisted on accompanying him to the office upstairs. Once there, they sat around the table while the letter was dictated to the stenographer above the protests of Judge Sullivan, who called it not only an exorbitant fee, but out and out robbery.

In ten or fifteen minutes, the letter was finished, signed by Judge Sullivan, and dropped into the mail slot.

As soon as the other gentlemen had left, Judge Sullivan went into the other room to reclaim the letter, but found that it had already been mailed. He worried about it for several days, wondering what the insurance company would think.

One morning some days later, he picked up a letter from the company and opened it. Out fell a check for twenty-five hundred dollars. He read the letter, and the insurance company had written:

"My dear Judge Sullivan:

We were most happy at the outcome of the case. We were very much concerned about this case, as it not only involved our policy contract in Nebraska, but all over the United States as well. We were pleased with the outcome, have received your statement, and are enclosing a check for the very modest fee you have asked."

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