(Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/benchbar/)

By Hugh Spitzer

One of the most amazing and lively sources of information about early Washington judges and lawyers is Dr. Arthur S. Beardsley’s unpublished manuscript, The Bench and Bar of Washington: The First Fifty Years (1849-1900), now available to the public at UW Law’s Gallagher Law Library. (See: https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/benchbar/.)

Arthur Beardsley is legendary among law librarians. He was born in Aberdeen, Washington on July 21, 1889, precisely when a constitutional convention was meeting 50 miles away in Olympia. Perhaps this coincidence miraculously imbued the infant Beardsley with his lifelong interest in our State Constitution and the history of legal life in Washington Territory and State.

Beardsley received a law degree at UW Law in 1918, and a Ph.D. in history in 1928. But Dean John Condon had already appointed Beardsley to head the law school’s library in 1922, and the young man immediately began building the collection of law books, starting with those previously donated by Dean Condon and ultimately reaching a million volumes. Beardsley led the library until 1944. During that time he not only developed the University of Washington’s law library into one of the largest in America, but also started the UW’s law librarianship program. He believed that law librarians should first have law degrees and then move to special law-focused library training. Before that, many law librarians had regular librarianship degrees, but Beardsley told his successor Marion Gallagher that he thought it was a waste of time for would-be law librarians to take courses in children’s librarianship.

One of Beardsley’s favorite pastimes was researching and writing Washington State legal history. Lawyers and judges regularly use his Notes on Sources of the Washington Constitution, 1889-1939 when developing briefs on state constitutional issues. (That work is available in the current Washington State Legislative Manual or through Gallagher Law Library.) His Washington-focused research also yielded The Codes and Code Makers of Washington, 1889-1937, 30 Pacific Northwest Quarterly 49 (1939), and several other historical articles.

But Arthur Beardsley’s magnum opus was his book on the bench and bar of Washington Territory and the first decade of statehood. In researching for that work, he corresponded with many older lawyers and judges and also built a collection of 1500 photos of legal luminaries from the state’s early days. In a 1941 letter to W.C. Bickford, Beardsley wrote, “It is our plan and hope to reconstruct the early history of the bench and bar through photographs and to preserve the memory of these pioneers at the bar for the benefit of lawyers who are yet to come.” (Quoted at Carissa Vogel, Rediscovering Dr. Arthur S. Beardsley: a Brief Introduction to his Life and Work (1988), available at:  https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/law-lib_borgeson/113/.)

Unfortunately, Beardsley’s massive work on Washington judges and lawyers remained unpublished after he left the library in 1944, and the manuscript remained tucked away in the Gallagher Law Library’s archives. But Gallagher has now digitized the entire book, available at https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/benchbar/.

Perusing Beardsley’s rambling work is a true joy to the historically curious or to lawyers and others seeking to understand the legal background of a specific incident or to know more about a judge or lawyer involved in a territorial or early state case. Gallagher Law Library’s site contains a separate PDF of each chapter, which makes it much easier to pick and choose what the reader might like. It’s very much worth taking a look.

To whet the historical appetite, the following is a complete list of the 42 chapters from Beardsley’s work:

Chapter 0 – Table of Contents and Preface

Chapter 1 – Law and Order in the Oregon Territory, North of the Columbia River 1849-1855; David Stone, the First Lawyer; The Wallance Murder Trial

Chapter 2 – Simpson Preston Moses – First Collector of Customs; Seizure of the Beaver and Mary Dare

Chapter 3 – John B. Chapman the First Lawyer Admitted; The Monticello Convention

Chapter 4 – First Legislative Session, 1854; and George N. McConaha

Chapter 5 – The Judiciary Arrives at Olympia

Chapter 6 – The Courts Begin Their Work

Chapter 7 – Martial Law Closes the Court at Steilacoom; Judge Lander Arrested; First Meeting of the Bar

Chapter 8 – Judge Chenoweth Reopens Court; The Trial of Leschi

Chapter 9 – Settlers Charged with Treason; Governor Stevens Reprieves Himself

Chapter 10 – Edmund Fitzhugh – a Colorful Judge; Courts and Cases in Whatcom, Jefferson, Island, and San Juan Counties

Chapter 11 – Territorial Jurisdiction; Background of the Supreme Court and the Early Decisions

Chapter 11A – Sketches of the Pioneer Bar

Chapter 12 – Early Courts and Cases of Pierce County

Chapter 13 – Walla Walla Under Judges Strong, Oliphant, and Wyche

Chapter 14 – Early Bar of Central Washington and the Inland Empire

Chapter 15 – Judge Wyche Supports Vancouver’s Claim to the Capitol

Chapter 16 – Quarrel Between Judges Hewitt and Wyche

Chapter 17 – Judge C. Ben Darwin, Co-Respondent in the Wilson Divorce Case; Vacations

Chapter 18 – Benjamin F. Dennison – Lawyer, Legislator, and Judge

Chapter 19 – Life and Public Service of Selucius Garfielde, Orator and Statesman

Chapter 20 – Tax Litigation Culminates in the Tragedy of Bion F. Kendall; Kennedy as Prosecutor and Judge

Chapter 21 – Charles M. Bradshaw of Port Townsend and His Legislative Quarrels

Chapter 22 – Joseph R. Lewis – Twice Resigned From Office; Lewis-Brents Dispute

Chapter 23 – Judges Samuel C. Wingard and William G. Langford

Chapter 24 – Two Territorial Judges Go To Congress (Orange Jacobs and Obidiah B. McFadden)

Chapter 25 – Constitutional Convention of 1878 and Delegate Thomas H. Brents

Chapter 26 – Lawyers of Distinction Part I: William Lair Hill, Charles Hathaway Larrabee, Henry G. Struve, Leander Holmes, Alonzo Gerry Cook, Cornelius Holgate Hanford, Charles S. Voorhees, John Charles Haines, John Beard Allen, Patrick Henry Winston, Samuel H. Piles, George Donworth, James B. Howe, Issac Miller Hall, Frank H. Rudkin, John J. McGilvra

Chapter 27 – Lawyers of Distinction Part II: Elisha P. Ferry, Watson C. Squire, William H. White, James B. Metcalfe, William Cary Jones, Edward Whitson, James Hamilton Lewis, Ralph Oregon Dunbar, Thomas Burke, James Theodore Ronald, Harold Preston, George Morris Haller, James McNaught, Elwood Evans, Frank Pierce

Chapter 28 – Judge John P. Hoyt and the Constitution of 1889

Chapter 29 – Roger S. Greene, The Great Chief Justice

Chapter 30 – Greene as a Jurist

Chapter 31 – The Arrival of Judge George Turner – Judge, Senator, and Diplomat

Chapter 32 – Two Opposing Judicial Philosophies

Chapter 33 – The Bench and Bar of Snohomish County

Chapter 34 – Lawyers and Law Courts of Spokane County

Chapter 35 – The Bar of Seattle in Later Years

Chapter 36 – Sketches of the Bench and Bar of Western Washington in the 1880’s and 1890’s

Chapter 37 – Lawyers and the Anti-Chinese Riots

Chapter 38 – Final Years of the Territorial Supreme Court

Chapter 39 – Struggle for the First United States Judgeship – Calkins vs. Hanford

Chapter 40 – Mining Booms, Irrigation, and Stockraising Bring New Counties, Courts, and Lawyers

Chapter 41 – Lawyers and Judges Under the Law

Chapter 42 – Organization of the Bar; Courts of Statehood

Chapter 42 (part 2) – Tables of Territorial Justices, County Courts & Judges, Supreme Court Justices, U.S. Judges, and Attorneys General

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Hugh Spitzer is a retired law professor at the UW Law School and a member of the Board of the Washington Courts Historical Society.