File contributed to Ohio Biographies Project by:
Linda Isenbarg
30 October 2000
History of Ross and Highland Counties Ohio
Biographical Sketches
Page 227
Williams Bros., Publishers
W. W. Williams, Printer, Cleveland, Ohio
1880
HONORABLE WILLIAM T. McCLINTICK
William T. McClintick, a gentleman well known in legal and railway circles, and one of the foremost citizens of Chillicothe, is a native of that place, born February 20, 1819, the second son of James and Charity (Trimble) McClintick, both of whom receive due notice in the foregoing sketch. His education was received in the Chillicothe racademy, the Ohio university, and Augusta college, Kentucky, of the second of which Dr. Wilson, the officiating minister at the marriage of his parents, was then president. He was graduated from the Augusta insitiution at the commencement of 1837. His father having a marked preference for the mathematical studies, young McClintick gave especial attention to them, and became so proficient in them as to receive encouragement from the professor of mathematics at the college, that he might become his successor. He declined the suggested honor, however, and in November of the same year entered upon the study of the law, in the office of Messrs. Creighton & Bond, old practitioners in Chillicothe. He was admitted to the honors and emoluments of the bar at a term of the State supreme court held in Portsmouth in 1840, after a searching examination, conducted by a committee, two of whose members were Hons. William Peck and John Welsh, afterward chief justices of the same court, under the consittution of 1851. The confidence reposed by members of the bar at his home in him and another from Chillicothe who was admitted at the same time, is evinced by the fact that, immediately upon their return, they were assigned, one each, to the opposing sides in a case then on trial, upon which were engaged as counsel respectively, Judge (now Senator) Thurman and General William S. Murphy, both of them among the leaders of the local bar. Mr. McClintick has since, during the long period of forty years, been in the active and full practice of his profession.
In May, 1843, although still a very young practitioner, he was admitted to membership, upon the basis of an equal share of the profits, in the firm of Creighton & Green, the former being one of his old preceptors. The law business in southern Ohio was then led by this firm and that of Allen & Thurman, the latter being consitiuted by the late governor, William Allen, and the present senator, Thurman. By the close of 1844, however, he decided upon an independent business, and opened an office for practice in his own name alone. Five years thereafter he was elected prosecuting attorney of Ross county, upon the Whig ticket, by a majority of nine hundred and forty-two, which was nearly fifty-four per cent. of the total vote which his opponent received.
In May, 1852, he admitted to partnership with him Amos Smith, esq., then of Lancaster, but since of Chillicothe, under the firm name of McClintick & Smith, which has been maintained prosperously and honorably to this day. Besides the pecuniary rewards attaching to success, Mr. McClintick has won many professional honors. He has been general counsel for the Marietta and Cincinnati railway for about twenty years, or since the reorganization of the company, in 1860. For some years he was also associate counsel for the Ohio and Mississippi railroad, and has been president of the Cincinnati and Baltimore Railway company since its organization in 1870, and president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railway company since October, 1879. He has been professionally associated with a large number of important suits involving principles of railway and commercial law. Upon the death of Judge Emmons, of the sixth United States judicial circuit, he was recommended by very many of his brethren of the Ohio bar and other influential gentlemen for the succession to the seat then made vacant. He was present at the formation of the American Bar Association, at Saratoga, August, 1878, and was there chosen to represent Ohio in the general council of that guild. Many minor honors have fallen to his lot which need not here be recapitulated. An ardent, yet independent, Republican since the Whig party became extinct, he has, nevertheless, been in no way conspicuous as an office seeker, much less a trading politician. He was, of course, a thorough-going Union man upon the outbreak of the Rebellion, and became an ardent supporter of the war. As chairman of the Ross county military committee he rendered eminently efficient service to the cause of the Union, and participated in the pursuit of the rebel, John Morgan, on the occasion of his raid through southern Ohio, in July, 1863.
Notwithstanding his long engrossment in legal, and of later years in railway, affairs, Mr. McClintick is, nevertheless, a many-sided man. His fine classical education has been supplemented by much reading and general study, and his mind has been broadened and enriched by communion with the great thinkers of all time. He has cultivated poetry to some extent, and has been often called upon to address literary societies, sometimes to speak at the laying of corner-stones of public edifices, and other important occasions, the most notable of which was the placing of the corner-stone of the present court house and county buildings in Chillicothe, which occurred in 1852. This was made a grand occasion. The old State house, in which the first constitution of Ohio was framed, had been removed, and the new building was to take the place of one about which clustered many pleasant memories and associations. It was an era in the history of Ross county, and induced many serious, yet pleasant reflections. Mr. McClintick, as the orator of the day, was equal to the occasion, and pronounced an address of great interest and merit.*
His chosen life-work, however, has been in legal practice, which he considers the noblest of professions, and declares that if he had his life to live over again he would choose to walk in the old path. In forming his conclusions he is apt to be considered slow, from his habit of holding his opinion in abeyance until he feels pretty sure that he has in hand all the facts that he can obtain, that help to a conclusion. In addressing juries he was formerly accustomed to go into extreme and perhaps unnecessary detail in the discussion of a case; but this has been measurably modified and corrected in the light of experience. His examination of legal questions is invariably exhaustive, and takes into account all the considerations that bear upon either side of a case under investigation.
On the moral side Mr. McClintick inherits the characteristics of his lamented father. As the latter was before him, the son is--an active, useful and consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, ever faithful and punctual in the performance of his religious duties, and has a high character for integrity and fair dealing with his fellow men.
On the first of October, 1845, Mr. McClintick was joined in matrimony to Miss Elizabeth M. Atwood, of Harrodsburgh, Kentucky. She is still living. They have had six children--Mary Petrea and Anna Porter residing at home; Elizabeth, wife of Charles L. Pruyn, esquire, of Albany, New York, and three who have gone to their long home.
The family inhabit an elegant mansion in Chillicothe, on Fifth street, between paint and Walnut streets; but Mr McClintick's office for the transaction of his principal business is necessarily in Cincinnati.
*Mr. McClintick had a singular personal experience connected with the old State house. At that time, his office was over the building in which the clerk's office was kept, and was reached by an outside flight of steps from the court house yard. He was passing through the yard to his office, when the auctioneer was offering the State house for sale by public outcry, for the petty sum of seventy five dollars. He increased the bid to seventy-six dollars, and went on to his office, little thinking that the structure would be allowed to sell at such an insignificant sum. To his surprise, however, the auctioneer afterwards came in and informed him that he was the purchaser. He paid the price, and found himself with an "elephant" on his hands. He was about to dispose of it, by putting its material into buildings on vacant lots, when the great fire of April 1, 1852, came along, and the necessity for speedily rebuilding the "burnt District," created a demand for all the stone, bricks and lumber of which the building was composed, so that he could scarcely save for himself and friends enough of the lumber from the judge's bench, or other official places, for mementos of the pioneer period of the State. But he got a good return for his money.
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