Luther Day
Luther Day, deceased, ex-Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, was born in Granville, Washington Co., N. Y., July 9, 1813. His paternal grandfather, Noah Day, was of the Connecticut family of Days, and did service under Washington in some of the hardest battles of the Revolutionary war. Soon after the war he moved from Killingly, Conn., and settled on a farm in Granville, N. Y., and, being a blacksmith by trade, carried on both the business of farming and blacksmithing. He reared a large family, who, like himself, were Puritans in religion, and most of them good farmers and mechanics. David Day, the father of Luther Day, was a skilled millwright. On June 1, 1812, he married Rhoda Wheelock, of Tyringham, Berkshire Co., Mass. Her father was also a soldier of the Revolution. Her mother was Hannah Warren, a kinswoman of Maj. Gen. Warren, who fell at Bunker Hill. The subject of this sketch attended the common schools until twelve years old, when he began an academic preparation for college, which he pursued for a year, when, his father having purchased a farm and saw-mill, he left the academy and worked at home on the farm for a year. He then returned to school, but in a few days after he received a message that his father had been killed in the mill. His father died much involved in debt, and it was thought that all he had saved would be sacriticed in the settlement of his estate. But, under the advice of an uncle, he resolved to save the family from that calamity. For six years—from fourteen to twenty—he labored on the farm and in the saw-mill, and with the help of his younger brother, the debts of the estate were paid and a home was saved for his mother and the younger children. Those are six valuable years to a young man desiring to obtain a liberal education, and the loss in that regard could never be regained, but great as the loss was to him and hard as the struggle was, he never looked back to those days with regret, but ever recurred to them as associated with the chief success of his life. Having at twenty years of age accomplished the desire of his friends and the ambition of his boyhood regarding the home of his family, his desire for an education returned, and working his way by teaching school, he resumed his preparatory course for college, and in 1885 entered Middlebury College, Vermont. During the junior year he taught the grammar school of Cambridgeport, Mass. At the close of the school year in September, 1838, his mother and family having in the meantime removed to Ravenna, Portage Co., Ohio, he went there to visit them, intending to return and complete his collegiate course, but owing to his limited pecuniary circumstances, he abandoned the idea, and began the study of law under the tuition of Hon. Rufus P. Spalding, then a resident of Ravenna, whose kindness to him during the two years of his preparatory study he ever gratefully remembered. On October 8, 1840. he was admitted to the bar. It was his good fortune to have a partnership offered him by Hon. Darius Lyman, an old practitioner of high standing at the Ohio bar. This partnership continued three years. In 1843 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Portage County and served one term. While reading law he had made the acquaintance of Miss Emily Swift Spalding, eldest daughter of Hon. R. P. Spalding, to whom he was married July 24, 1845. Her mother was Lucretia Swift, daughter of Hon. Zephaniah Swift, late Chief Justice of Connecticut. Her father was afterward a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and for three terms a distinguished member of Congress, from the Cleveland District, Ohio. Mr. Spalding having in 1840 moved to Akron, Mr. Day went there after his marriage and formed a partnership with him, remaining nearly a year, when, because of the ill health of his wife in that locality, he returned to Ravenna, where he resided during the remainder of his life. In 1848 our subject was again elected Prosecuting Attorney and served one term. In 1850 he was nominated by the Democratic party as a candidate for Congress, but the district having a large Whig majority, he was defeated. In the fall of 1851, at the first election of Judges under the Constitution of the State adopted that year, he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the district composed of the counties of Portage, Trumbull and Mahoning.
In February, 1852, while on a visit to her father, Judge R. P. Spalding, who had then become a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, his wife was taken sick. She died April 10, following. On April 26, 1854, Judge Day was married to Miss Ellen I. Barnes, of Lanesboro, Berkshire Co., Mass., a highly educated and estimable lady, and the union was most fortunate, both on his own account and of the three young children left him by his former marriage, by whom she has ever been most worthily esteemed and loved. Her kindred have for several generations been distinguished for their culture and high standing in the learned professions. Judge Day, at the expiration of his judicial term, in 1857, resumed the practice of his profession, and had a large and lucrative business in the counties of his former judicial district and adjoining counties. When the war of the Rebellion broke out, he ceased to act with the Democratic party, and at once identified himself with the Union organization. In January, 1862, Gov. David Tod, who had in the fall before been elected Governor of Ohio by the Union party, appointed him Judge Advocate General on his staff with the rank of Colonel, but soon after, by reason of previous professional engagements, he was reluctantly forced to resign the position. In the fall of 1863 be was elected by the Republican party to the Ohio Senate, from the district composed of Portage and Summit Counties. Having been in the fall of 1864 elected Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for the term of five years, he resigned his position as Senator after one year's service. In 1869 he was elected to a second term as Judge of the Supreme Court. In 1874 he was again nominated by the Republican party for the same position, but the State going largely Democratic that year, he was defeated. In 1875 the Legislature created a commission consisting of three persons, to revise the statute laws of the State. In April of that year he was appointed by Gov. William Allen, who had been elected Governor by the Democratic party, one of the Revising Commissioners. In the fall of 1875 an amendment of the State Constitution was adopted, creating a commission in aid of the Supreme Court in the disposition of the large number of cases pending in that court. On February 1, 1876, Gov. R. B. Hayes appointed our subject a member of that commission. Accordingly, he resigned his membership of the Revising Commission and entered upon the duties of the Supreme Court Commission, where he remained three years, when the commission expired by constitutional limitation. While on the Revising Commission he aided in the collation of the statutes, which were fragmentary and scattered through many volumes, and rewrote a portion of them, which were afterward embodied in the Revised Code, and enacted as part of the laws of the State. While connected with the Supreme Court he was four years Chief Justice and one year Chief Judge of the Supreme Court Commission. The results of his judicial labors appear in fifteen volumes of the Ohio State Reports, where his published opinions, measured only by their real merit, will remain for him a sufficient memorial of his judicial ability. After the expiration of Judge Day's judicial service, he returned to the practice of the law.
The children of his first wife were Emily L., William R. and Edward L. Of these Emily L. married George E. Fairchild and is settled in Ravenna. William R., who is a graduate of Michigan University, resides in Canton, Stark Co., Ohio, and is a prominent member of the Stark County bar. Edward L., a boy of bright promise, died of diphtheria at the age of twelve. By his second wife he had six children: Mary E., the eldest of these, a most lovely child, died when five years of age; Charles F. is a graduate of Williams College, Massachusetts, and is about to enter the legal profession; David B. is in his junior year in Adelbert College of the Western Reserve University, Ohio; Robert H. is in the preparatory department of the same institution, and Anna B. at home attending the Union School, of Ravenna; John L., the youngest child, died in his infancy. During the war for the preservation of the Union, Judge Day took an active part in the recruiting service, and few civilians rendered more efficient aid to the Union cause. During those years he contracted a slight throat trouble, from which he never recovered, occasioned by too much out-door speaking. More than a passing mention of his services is due to this memorable period, which witnessed the most active portion of his whole life. A life-long Democrat of the Jackson school, prominent in the councils of his party, and a fearless and judicious leader, he ever acted with those who sustained the integrity of the Union. The first gun that was fired on Sumter lifted him to a higher arena. Abandoning party affiliation and, true to the traditions of the patriotic ancestry from which he sprung, he devoted himself to the Union cause with a zeal and enthusiasm that knew no abatement until the Republic won its imperishable crown at Appomattox. In raising and organizing the Ohio Union forces. Govs. Dennison, Tod and Brough respectively sought his co operation, and he entered into the work with characteristic ardor and devotion—day after day, night after night, speaking, encouraging and inspiring those that took their lives in their hands, and those who sent their sons to the scenes of conflict and danger. Having urged the assignment of Gen. Garfield, the President of Hiram College, to the command of a regiment, he joined him in the work of its organization, and the meeting in the church of Hiram, addressed by Judge Day, was a memorable occasion, when the young men of the college and vicinity volunteered to form the first company in the old Forty-second Regiment of Ohio, whose first leader was destined to a transcendant historic fame. Throughout this entire period the demands on Judge Day for his services on public occasions of every kind were almost unlimited, and the fervor of his public addresses roused men to action at home, and sent encouragement to those in the field. For himself, permitting no reward, and asking no honor, he devoted the whole energies of his being to the success of the cause. Born among the hills of eastern New York, and spending his academic years at Castleton, Bennington and Middlebury, Vt, he ever had an enthusiasm for the mountains that nearly amounted to poetic inspiration, and when worn with overwork he was accustomed to resort to them for rest and reinvigoration. Judge Day was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to which he was much attached. But in religious views he was tolerant and liberal, regarding the life, rather than the creed, the best exponent of Christian character. In all religious, benevolent and moral enterprises he took a strong interest, giving to them liberally according to his means.
Judge Day died at his home, after an illness of five days, March 8, 1885, aged seventy-one years, eight months. His sudden and unexpected death cast a gloom over all who knew him. not only in Ravenna, but throughout the State. His funeral services were held at the Methodist Episcopal Church on the 11th, and were largely attended. Members of the bar were present from Cleveland, Akron, Canton, Massillon, Youngstown, Warren, Ravenna and other places; also Judges Mcllvain and Johnson, of the Supreme Court. David Mcintosh Post, G. A. R., attended in a body. Thus terminated the life-history of one of Ohio's most eminent citizens and distinguished jurists. A retrospect of his noble character and eventful life recalls to mind the beautiful words of America's poet laureate:
"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time."
From History of Portage County, Ohio, Warner, Beers & Co., Chicago, 1885