MEMORIAL SERVICES

HELD IN THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS ON THE Death OF THE HON. BENJAMIN DRAKE MAGRUDER.

On Thursday, October 13, 1910, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in the Supreme Court room at Springfield, the following proceedings were had:

CHIEF JUSTICE VICKERS: The hour has arrived which has been set apart for the presentation of resolutions and memorials touching the life and public service of Mr. Justice Magruder, who died last April. The court has been advised that the State Bar Association has appointed a committee for the purpose of presenting appropriate resolutions and memorials on this occasion, and that Mr. Robert McMurdy is present as a member of that committee for the purpose of presenting these resolutions and this memorial. The court will now be pleased to hear Mr. McMurdy.

BY MR. ROBERT MCMURDY:

May it please the court-At the last session of the Illinois State Bar Association a committee of five was appointed to draft a memorial upon the life and public services of the late Justice Benjamin Drake Magruder, that committee consisting of Samuel Alschuler and Nathaniel M. Jones, of Chicago, James H. Matheny, of Springfield, Franklin L. Velde, of Pekin, and myself, all the committee being present here to-day except one, who was called out of the State temporarily. The memorial has been prepared and is in the following words:

"Benjamin Drake Magruder was born near Natchez, Mississippi, in September, 1838. At the age of fourteen he entered

Yale College, at New Haven, Connecticut, where his grandfather's family then resided. He graduated just before his eighteenth birthday, in the class of 1856. Of the ninety-seven members of the class he was the youngest. In 1858 he graduated from the law school of the University of Louisiana, at New Orleans, and practiced in Memphis, Tennessee, until the breaking out of the war, when he moved to Chicago, where he built up a lucrative practice. In 1869 he was appointed master in chancery of the superior court of Cook county by Joseph E. Gary, judge of that court, with whose former partner, George F. Bailey, Judge Magruder was associated under the firm name of Bailey & Magruder.

"While still holding the master's office, in November, 1885, he was nominated by the republican party as the successor of T. Lyle Dickey upon the bench of the Supreme Court of Illinois. The democratic party endorsed the nomination, and he was elected without opposition for an unexpired term of three years, and in 1888 and 1897, respectively, for the full term of nine years. He served, therefore, for twenty-one years upon the Supreme bench and was three times chief justice. His opinions are embraced in 107 volumes of the Reports, beginning with volume 115 and ending with volume 221. In June, 1906, he ran as an independent candidate for the office, but was defeated and re-entered the practice of the law in Chicago.

"Judge Magruder's residence was at No. 7 Washington place. The house was destroyed in the great fire of October, 1871, but re-built in 1873, and there he continued to live throughout his life. For forty years he was a member of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, located near his home, and during the latter part of his life he was an elder of that church. In June, 1906, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.

"He died at his home in Chicago on April 21, 1910, at the age of three score and eleven. Consistently with the simplicity of his character, and in accordance with his expressed wish, the obsequies were of the plainest character. Of his immediate family, only one, his son, Henry Latham Magruder, of the Illinois bar, now residing in Michigan, survives him.

"He was married on June 15, 1864, to Miss Julia M. Latham, of Springfield, Illinois, an accomplished and talented woman. For forty years they enjoyed together the privileges of an ideal union.