We here submit a few memorials of the bench and bar of Buchanan County and the "Platte Purchase."  Every hour diminishes our recollections of by-gone days; but a few glimpses remain, and a few short years will obliterate every view and vestige of what, in the passing pageants of life, has been so interesting to us all.
    To one of the oldest representative members of the legal fraternity are we indebted for the following sketches of the men who were the pioneer attorneys of Buchanan County.

GENERAL ANDREW S. HUGHES

     "The first lawyer in the Platte country was General Andrew S. Hughes.  General Hughes was said to have been a resident lawyer of Buchanan County, from the fact that he was an Indian agent in the county up to the annexation of the Platte Purchase to the State.
     He owned a large farm and servants in Clay County, on which his wife and only son. General Bela M. Hughes, now of Denver, Colorado, resided, and on which he spent a portion of his time when not engaged at Agency.
     I first knew General Hughes in Kentucky.  He resided in Nicholas County; was a lawyer of some eminence and a brilliant advocate.  Early as 1824, he represented the Senatorial district composed of the counties of Nicholas and Breckenridge in the Legislature of Kentucky.  I resided at Augusta, Breckenridge County, and first met him when he was canvassing for the Senate.  He was appointed an Indian agent under the administration of John O. Adams, in 1826.
     He was one of the most remarkable men, in many respects, of this or any other age.  Kind of heart, cheerful, mirthful to hilarity, genial in manners, indeed geniality itself.  He possessed an inexhaustible fund of brilliant anecdotes, and a wit as keen and merciless as Swift's and a sar-

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casm as blighting as Randolph's.  One of the few men of real genius I ever met.  The emanations of real genius come from the Creator.  Elaboration is man's work and merely art.  General Hughes was a man of real genius.  I think he died in 1843, at Plattsburg, attending court.  He got wet while crossing the Platte River and caught cold, and died from the effects of it, at the age of about 60 years.

WILLIAM B. ALMOND

     I think the next lawyer that settled in the Platte Purchase was William B. Almond, who first settled in Platte City, and then removed to Sparta, Buchanan County, in 1839.  Mr. Almond was a Virginian by birth, from Prince Edward County, and a graduate of Hampton Sidney College.  He and Sterling Price were natives of the same county, and graduated at the same institution at about the same time.  He was educated with some care for a Presbyterian minister, but being of an adventurous disposition, he went with the old fur company of Smith, Sublett & Jackson, to their depot in the Rocky Mountains, on the head waters of the Yellowstone.  With the wages he received, (which were high, as the trip was dangerous), he returned to Virginia and studied law.  He then returned to Missouri, and as soon as the Platte country was annexed to the state, he settled in Platte County.  He had a very good practice in Buchanan County for a few years, and in 1844 he formed a partnership with Henry M. Vories, late Judge of the Supreme Court, which continued until 1849, when Almond went to California, still following his disposition for travel and adventure.  On his arrival there, through the influence of Governor Burnett, of California, he was appointed Judge.  He remained in California for several years.  Having accumulated about $20,000 while there, he returned and

permanently located in Platte City.  He was elected Judge of that circuit, comprising the Platte country, in 1854.  He only held the office a short time, resigning to return to California, to attend to some pecuniary matters.
     After his second return from California he practiced law in Platte City and Leavenworth until his death, which I think occurred in 1861, dying suddenly at the breakfast table in Leavenworth, while there attending court.
     Almond was a fluent speaker, without approaching or approximating eloquence.  He was a fair lawyer, and, while not an orator, was an honorable and successful advocate.

THEODORE D. WHEATON.

     Theodore D. Wheaton came to St. Joseph just before or about the time Almond came to Sparta.  Wheaton was from Connecticut, and was raised in the same town and educated at the same institution with Gov-

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ernor Phelps.  When he finished his education, he went to Virginia as a schoolmaster, seeking employment.  Having taught there acceptably for some years he immigrated to Saline County, Missouri, with a colony, at the head of whom was Maj. Harney, who was afterward Speaker of the General Assembly of Missouri.  He taught school in Saline and in the interim studied law and then removed to St. Joseph, where he remained for several years until he removed to Savannah.  As a practitioner he displayed the coolness and tact incident to the Yankee under Colonel Price and went to Mexico, arriving while I was there.  He remained in New Mexico and became a distinguished member of the bar of that territory, as well as a member of the House of Territorial Delegates.  His success there as here was the result more of tact and shrewdness than real talent.

PETER H. BURNETT.

     Peter H. Burnett, of San Francisco, was the first prosecuting attorney in the Buchanan County District.  He has since been Governor of California, and Judge of the Supreme Court of that state.  Few men have had a more eventful life than Governor Burnett.  He was a native of Tennessee.  His father emigrated to Missouri when he was small, located in Clay County, which was then an extreme western county in Missouri.  At about seventeen or eighteen years of age, he returned to Tennessee and acquired a very good English education, by the kindness of his mother's relative (the Hardamans), a very distinguished family, after whom Hardaman County, Tennessee, was named.  He partially studied law in Tennessee, but engaged in merchandizing as a sort of episode in his life.  He was not successful and quit merchandizing about as poor as he was when he began.  He then returned to Missouri and commenced merchandising in Liberty, when he again failed.  In the interim, he had read law, carefully, and was really a very excellent lawyer for his age.   

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HENRY M. VORIES

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JAMES B. GARDENHIRE.

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GENERAL DAVID R. ATCHISON

DRAWING
A PRAIRIE HOME

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WILLARD P. HALL.

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SOLOMON L. LEONARD

was one of the early immigrants to the Platte country.  He had been engaged in teaching school at the time of his coming.  He was in moderate circumstances, indeed might be termed poor, but he had pluck and perseverance enough for two men, but succeeded rather slowly at the

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practice of law.  He lived on a small farm two miles from Platte City, about twenty acres of which he cleared and cultivated.  From these two sources he made barely a comfortable subsistence.  In 1843, I think, the state was entitled to five hundred thousand acres of public land, and Solomon L. Leonard was appointed a commissioner to select land for the state.  The compensation he received for the same enabled him to purchase the land on which he resided and on which his wife now resides, east of St. Joseph.
     In 1844 or '45, he was appointed judge of that circuit to fill a vacancy occasioned by the resignation of Henderson Young, who had been judge for about one year after General Atchison's resignation.  He continued in office until 1852, when he declined being a candidate for re-election.  In most respects he was a model judge; commencing court every morning early at the very moment to which it was adjourned.  Every day he got through the docket of that day, if it could be done by dark.
     Lawyers had to work hard, and those who were not fond of hard work found fault.  I always found him courteous and respectful to all members of the bar.  The hard work imposed on the bar was not the result of any arbitrary feeling on his part, but a determination and an honest purpose to subserve the interest of the public properly.  It would be better for the bar and public if more judges would follow the same course.
     After he retired from the bench he formed a partnerthip partnership in the practice of law with General Bela M. Hughes.  It was a very able firm, and while it continued it had as much practice as it could attend to.  Judge Leonard's wealth gradually increased, and the property he left made all his family rich.  The increase of his property and the business consequent upon it, induced him to abandon the practice almost entirely.
     During the first year of the war, in 1861, he went south, whether to carry his negroes south or to engage in the Southern cause, I do not know.  He was drowned at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, in Grand River, in that year.
     Judge Leonard had as much will-power as any man I ever knew, and a large volume of brain power.  He was a man of strong prejudices - his enemies could hardly do right, and his friends could scarcely do wrong.  He was aware of these prejudices, and brought his strong willpower
to control them on the bench, which he did successfully.  He was devoted to his family, and educated his daughters with a great deal of care, regardless of expense.  Rather impatient by nature, yet he was fond of legal and logical discussion, and listened with patience to lawyers of any ability.  We were warm personal friends, and I deemed him a just and able judge.

GENERAL BELA M. HUGHES

was the son of General Andrew S. Hughes herein mentioned, and born

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in Nicholas County, Kentucky.  His mother was a sister to Thomas Metcalf, who was a captain in the war of 1812, a Member of Congress for many years, Governor of the State, and then a United States Senator.
     Coming from such a stock on the respective sides, it would naturally be supposed that General Hughes would be a man of high order of intellect.  Those whose anticipations were the highest have not been disappointed.  He graduated at Augusta College, Kentucky.
     Immediately after he graduated he went to Wisconsin Territory as a private secretary of the Territorial Governor.  He was introduced into social and political life under favorable auspices. While there he improved his learning much from men and books.  Coming to Missouri, he commenced the study of law, but having married when he was very young, and having six or eight thousand dollars in his own right, he thought it would be better to accumulate a fortune rapidly by engaging in merchandising and commerce.  He located at Weston, Platte County.  As he knew nothing of business, it did not take him long to lose half of his fortune.  He sold out, re-engaged in the study, and finally in the practice of his profession.
     He succeeded very well from the start; was elected to the Legislature from that county; and appointed Receiver of Public Moneys at the United States Land Office at Plattsburg, Missouri.  He remained there until General Taylor was elected in 1848, and although his uncle, who was then a Whig Senator from Kentucky, and myself and others, who knew General Taylor well, assured him he would not be removed, his delicate sense of propriety induced him to resign (he being a Democrat), saying that he "would not hold an office which, under the custom of parties, belonged to some Whig."  He removed to St. Joseph, and lived there as long as he remained in the State.  He formed a partnership, first with Solomon L. Leonard, and afterwards with Silas Woodson.  Both these partnerships were remunerative.  Governor Woodson was appointed Judge of that circuit, and General Hughes went to Atchison, Kansas, more for the purpose of attending to the varied interests of his cousin, Benjamin Holliday, the distinguished pioneer in steamship lines, railroads, and overland mail.  This business required many long and dangerous voyages to Colorado, Salt Lake, and San Francisco, in connection with the Holliday mail route.  Selecting Denver as a central position for the route, he finally located there, removed his family and made it
his permanent home.  When his connection with Holliday had terminated, he resumed his profession, and at a bound placed himself at the head of the able bar of Colorado, which position he maintains now (1881).  He is employed in all the important suits arising from railroads, mines, telegraphs, and stock operations.  He has acquired a fortune by his close attention to business, and with the wonderful sucess success with which he has met.  I have spent six summers in Colorado; have often heard

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him in courts, and was there when he was nominated by the Democrats of that state for Governor, and during his brilliant canvas.  His speeches were marked by the caustic wit, sharp repartee, and boundless humor that characterized his father, with much more learning and general attainments.  He may be deemed an eminent jurist and orator, and I know personally of his receiving a letter from one of the most distinguished jurists in New York asking his opinion in relation to his construction of a very ambiguous statute, saying "that he would rather have his opinion than any other lawyer, and that his clients would pay him liberally for it."
     His great ability, integrity, and attention to business, assures us that he will always retain his business and practice as large as he desires.

SILAS WOODSON

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ROBERT M. STEWART.

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GENERAL J. M. BASSETT.

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GENERAL A. DONIPHAN.

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ATTORNEYS WHO LIVED AT SPARTA.

AT ST. JOSEPH,

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.