EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally published on Richland Source in 2014.

MANSFIELD — Walking across the Mansfield square in the 1840s, one might come across a huddle of young lawyers joking, joshing and conferring.

Because the Square was such a rustic cow pen at that time, and the attorneys likely had mud on their shoes, you wouldn’t imagine that what you were seeing was a legal powerhouse that would go on to change the face of America in the next few decades.

Most often in history when we look at individuals who have accomplished great things, their lives are judged from the end where the tally is, and their portraits appear as old patriarchs when their faces can show the wisdom and weatherings of time and trials. These Mansfield men all earned those formal portraits by the end of their lives, but when they all knew each other in Mansfield, they were young and untried by life.

Looking at their fresh faces it is difficult to read what great works they would go on to achieve. Of these five young men, three would be congressmen, three would be governors, two would be senators and secretaries of the president’s cabinet, and one would be Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.

In fact, there was a time when men from Richland County so dominated the Ohio Capitol, that it was jokingly suggested the name be changed to “The State of Richland County.”

Bartley & Bartley

Mordecai Bartley and Thomas Bartley — father and son — were both lawyers, and you would think that they could comprise a cozy family practice: Bartley & Bartley, Esqs.; but in fact, they didn’t exactly see eye to eye.

They each embraced their political party with great fervor and terrific success … it’s just that they each supported a different party. They even ran for office against each other. Imagine how confusing it would be if that race were held today so that the signs and billboards over town — for both parties — all advertised Bartley for Governor.

The story gets even more interesting: they both served as Governor of Ohio in succession, 1844-1846, only — counter to what might be expected — it was the young man first, followed by the old man. In 1844 the young Thomas Bartley was appointed Governor to fulfill an unexpired term, and he occupied the governor’s chair as a Democrat.

In the following election, when he had to run to keep his office, the opponent who defeated him — a Whig — was his own father.

Thomas Bartley’s law offices, which had desks for two of the other men in this article, were located on Diamond Street facing the square.

Jacob Brinkerhoff

Most Mansfielders who have heard the name are familiar with Brinkerhoff Avenue, which was named for one of Jacob’s kin.

Jacob came to town as a young man and was admitted to the Bar in 1837 to practice law in partnership with Thomas Bartley. By 1839, he was Richland County Prosecuting Attorney. Two years later he went off to Washington as our congressman.

In later life, he distinguished himself as Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, but it was during his terms as a congressman that Brinkerhoff wrote himself into American History.

Students today know it as the Wilmot Proviso: hotly debated by Congress in 1846, it was the watershed act first addressing slavery that effectively divided legislators into two very opposing camps, that ultimately led to the Civil War. Though Wilmot’s name has descended through time attached to the legislation, it was actually written by Jacob Brinkerhoff from Mansfield — and the original document at the Library of Congress is in his own handwriting.

Samuel Kirkwood

When Jacob Brinkerhoff left Richland County to go off to Congress, he left his desk at Bartley’s law office, and the office of Prosecuting Attorney open. The man who filled his shoes was a young new attorney named Samuel Kirkwood. 

The ink was barely dry on his law license when Sam became Richland County Prosecutor. Naturally, the first case he had to try as soon as he walked through the door was a famous murder trial in Mansfield. Oddly enough, Kirkwood was called on to convict the man who had killed an attorney who happened to be Kirkwood’s best friend.

An excellent account of this curious trial, and the Mansfield scandals surrounding it, was published in 2010 as Two Sons: The Bowland-Barker Murder, by Alan Wigton.

This legal ‘trial by fire’ apparently tempered Sam Kirkwood sufficiently in service of the public good, because his subsequent career — as he went on from Mansfield — took him to become Governor of Iowa during the Civil War, then U.S. Senator, then Iowa Governor again, then U.S. Senator again, then Secretary of the Interior under President James A. Garfield, also an Ohioan.

John Sherman

The other young attorney in Mansfield during the 1840s who stepped from the Richland County courthouse into U.S. History was John Sherman. In a career that kept him on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. for nearly 50 years, Sherman represented Richland County as a Congressman, Senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State.

He was a leading candidate for President at least once, and left his name carved into U.S. law so substantially that it is still invoked to this day under his name as the Sherman Anti-Trust Law.

Look him up today and the substantial documentation of his career is always illustrated with portraits that portray him bearded like Lincoln to convey the gravitas of his persona and accomplishments.

But his career in Mansfield, that launched his national renown, was inaugurated with considerably less dignity. In his autobiography, he wrote, “Some time in March, 1840, taking the stage for Mansfield … we met with no adventure worthy of notice until we arrived at our destination, when, in ascending the hill to the public square, the coach slipped and fell on its side. This we considered a bad omen.”

It was not, however, an unusual accident, as the roads were always bad in March, and the coaches of that day were not worthy of the name. 

Summation

And so it is that we can picture all of these accomplished men whose careers launched from the courthouse in the square in Mansfield. The muddy swamp on the southwest corner of the square was so deep it supported a chorus of frogs who nightly sang in rustic harmony, ever to remind the attorneys of their humble beginnings before they became much larger fish in a much larger pond.

(Click through the photos above for the story in further detail.)

Timothy Brian McKee is a featured columnist on our site every Sunday with a column titled Native Son. Every Tuesday, he taps into his knowledge and collection of historical photos and bring us Then & Now, a brief glance at the way things were.

Timothy Brian McKee grew up in Mansfield and started gathering local history when he was in the 6th grade, but left here in the 1980s with no intention of ever returning again. After a number of years in California he realized that what he knew best was Richland County history, and that if he had anything to offer the world it was here. So he came back home and has spent the last fifteen years telling our story in books, paintings and film.