OCR Text |
Show As I Remember Them ydge David S. Terry By C. C. Goodwin A POWERFUL, man physically and mentally, five feet eleven inches in height, I should say, broad-shouldered, compact, strong, weighing close upon two hundred pounds; dark, sallow, a kindly face, but a glance at it revealed something like an Indian's imperturbability and there was left upon the mind something which was a reminder of a wolf's long lope in the chase or of a tiger's lying in wait and all collected col-lected for its spring. We have no recollection of any other just such a nature as was his. He was a Texan; his home had always been moio on the frontier than in the haunts where men congregate, but still he was a broad scholar, a masterful lawyer. He was an intense Southerner in all that meant in California from 1849 to 1859, but was never noisy in his partisanship. He had a moral code of his own. He would have gone to the stake smiling for a principle. He would have risked his own life at any "time to have saved the life of another; but when he felt that another man had insulted him, ihe would have felt no more hesitation about killing that man than he would of shooting a wild animal. He was a great lawyer. The science of law was to him what gravitation is to matter. As the one holds the universe in order, so he felt that the order and progress of, society rested on the proper execution of the other. So when he was but a young man he was made a judge of the supreme court of California he held his part'sanship, ihis intense seotional prejudices all subordinate to the sense of duty, which was upon him to execute the trust he had assumed to interpret the laws wijJi absolute jus- tice regardless of friend or foe, for his integrity was absolute. Only in one thing was he inconsistent. A personal insult he held to be such an assault upon the personal character of a man, that a man's right of self-defense was not subject to any human hu-man law; that it was a divine right, which it was cowardice not to vindicate. Except for the springing of the vigilance committee com-mittee of 1856 in Can Francisco, Judge Terry might have lived and died with only the reputation repu-tation of being a great and incorruptible judge and much-loved citizen. But when the vigilance committee was formed and Casey and Cory were hanged, all the tiger in the nature of Judge Terry was aroused. He held the formation of the committee as an insult to the law, and to the courts, of the highest of which he was a judge. Then, according to his code, the killing of James King" of William, by Casey, was right; that there was nothing else for Casey to do, and that he should have been) commended instead of hanged. , The facts were these. For a long' time the honest people of San Francisco had been neglecting ne-glecting their duty. They had remained away from the primaries and conventions, until every office was under the control of such a ring of grafters and criminals as were a menace to society. so-ciety. James King of William established the Bulletin, a daily newspaper, with the proclaimed intention of breaking up this ring and redeeming redeem-ing the city from the spoilsmen. He lived at a time and in a place where men were given to settling their personal quarrels by duels, regular according to the code, or ir regular by street encounters. Casey was in this ring. In New York, before he was of age, for M some offense, he had served a brief sentence in M Sing-Sing prison. After the Bulletin had run for M some months, every day filled with personal at- M tacks which were terrible and which, by the M way, the true men of San Francisco did not ap- M prove a compositor on the Bulletin sought M Casey and told him that he had seen in type the H story of his conviction and imprisonment in New H York, and that it would be published in the M Bulletin that afternoon. H Casey sought and obtained an interview with H James King of William, told him that when he H left home he had promised his mother that he H would make her no more sorrow; that he was H willing that the Bulletin should publish anything H it could find about his life since he had reached San Francisco, but begged, for his mother's sake, M that the New York record be not published. H Thereupon King ordered Casey out of the office. H At this Casey gave him notice that if he did H publish that old story he would kill him. H King not only published it, but published also H the threat that had been made; then outlined the H streets he would travel in going home that even- H iug and stated the hour that he would leave the H Bulletin office. Casey met him, shot him through H the shoulder, and either from the wound or its H treatment, King died a few days later. With H the death of King a mighty revulsion of senti- H ment swept over the city; men by thousands H who had denounced the way the Bulletin had H been run, suddenly held James King of William H as a martyr; the vigilance committee was or- H ganized, and Casey was hanged. With him, Cory, H a murderer, was executed; some few days later jH two other men were hanged and a great many l' suspicious characters banished. , H As sa'd above, at this Judge Terry was fur- H ious; so were most of the lawyers, and judges H of California; so was William Tecumseh Sherman, H then a banker in odn Francisco; so was that H Farragut, who later was the great admiral, who H at that time had command of the Mare Island H navy yard. H In an altercation in San Francisco Judge H Terry stabbed a man named Hopkins, danger-H danger-H ously, and was arrested. Hopkins lay in peril for H death several days. Had he died it is believed B that Terry would have been executed. This H greatly embittered him. In the meantime the H stage was being set for the great tragedy that H was to kindle its sombre fires five years later. H When the great quarrel between Senators H Gwin and Broderick was sprung, Terry, of course, H belonged to the Gwin wing of the Democratic H party, but ho and Broderick had long been per- H sonal friends. The extreme southern men were H afraid ito have Senator Gwin because of his age, H meet Broderick in a duel, so a passing remark H of Broderick's was magnified and carried to Ter- H ry. Terry at once resigned his office and sent a H challenge to Broderick. Broderick accepted and H was killed. H Terry soon drifted back to the south; when H the war came on he joined the army of the Con- H federacy, fought through the war, and then re- H turned and settled in Nevada, remaining there Hj several years practicing his profession. H There was no bitterness in his nature; he was K universally esteemed by men of all parties and Hj sections. Later he removed to California, we H, believe, with no desire except to make a home H' and pass his last years under the skies of the H state which, in his youth, had so much honored Hl him. But his fate was following him. He was H! called upon by a woman who had sued ex-Senator H Sharon to compel him to acknowledge that she was B his wife. The woman was one who had a wonder- Hl ful influence over men. Hj Judge Terry espoused her cause and appear- H ed in court as her champion and defender. The H; case went against him and her, and Justice Field Hj of the United States supreme court, who was ' sitting with Judge Sawyer of the circuit court H' in San Francisco, made the ruling which pun H dshed the woman and Terry for contempt. In the H meantime the woman had used her fascinations H upon Judge Terry, had drawn him to her by a H spell which completely involved him and he had H made her his wife. M Knowing Judge Terry's record and something H of his nature a bodyguard was placed over Jus- B tice Field. One evening Justice Field with this guard boarded the train at Los Angeles for San Francisco. When the train reached Fresno, in the night, Judge Terry, with his wife, also took the train for San Francisco. The train stopped H Ib 1 BfioceH5?w ,S''ffij WFjB'KaM 1 H H ESfcLw jr'MtfxiMlU '-mM hHMI 1 H h sDuisSiQp&EP &SX J&SVHrflVvl ll H ) H BMBreLi JHSft&iiStflML kHHriHr BMSIiSSBmi - . .- , m '. 1, EHBS 1 "i tit " . Ltpjrtght G. V. Buci,ftom Undtrwnd 8 Undtrwud, N. V, HONORABLE CHAMP CLARK. The new Speaker of the House, who took the oath of offlce Tuesday, April 4th, as the Speaker of the extra session of the sixty-second Congress. at Lathrop for breakfast and both Field and Terry, unconscious of the others presence, entered en-tered the dining room. Terry finished his breakfast first, and coming out of the dining room passed where Field was sitting and slapped his face. The blow was doubtless to insult Field and cause him to challenge Terry, for Field believed be-lieved in the code. But the guard sprang up and shot Terry dead. Thus went out the stormy life. He was gifted above most of his fellows; he filled high places (Continued on Page 31) bullet in his brafn. His arm hung down to the floor, where his revolver had fallen.. A letter stained with blood was open on the table. Written Writ-ten with his hand, it was addressed to Monsieur and Madame Buquet and began thus: ' 'My dear friends, you have been the joy and charm of my life.' He announced to them his resolution to die, without positively stating his motives; but he hinted that money troubles had driven him to suicide. I ascertained that he had been dead about an hour. Therefore he must have killed himself at the very moment when Madame Buquet saw him in the mirror! . "Is not that, as I was telling you, my dear fellow, a case perfectly established of second sight, or to speak more exactly, an example of those strange psychic synchronisms which science is studying today with more zeal than success?" 1 "Perhaps it was something else," I replied. 'Are you very sure that there was nothing between be-tween Marcel Geraud and Madame Buquet?" "Why ... I never -noticed anything. But even so, what difference would that make-?" Anatole France. |