My Genealogy Hound

JUDGE EDWIN H. STOWE was born Jan. 2, 1826, in the town of Beaver, the eldest son of Hiram Stowe and Martha Darragh, a daughter of Maj. Robert Darragh, who at one time represented Beaver county in the state senate. The wife of Maj. Darragh was Deborah Hart, a granddaughter of John Hart, of New Jersey, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The grandfather of Hiram Stowe was a soldier of the Revolution from Connecticut, and his father, having purchased a farm near Warren, Ohio, in the Western Reserve, removed there with his family in 1808. Hiram being a man of enterprise and having a taste for mercantile pursuits, when quite young left his father’s home and removed to Beaver county, where, in 1823, he embarked in business in the town of Beaver. In 1827 he removed to a village on the west side of the Beaver river, now known as Bridgewater, and entered into partnership with Mr. Darragh, then engaged in merchandising at that place, the firm becoming H. Stowe & Co. The business, which prospered, was continued until 1836, when Mr. Stowe, having been elected cashier of the Branch Bank of Pittsburgh, located in Beaver, retained that position until 1839, when the branch was withdrawn. He was after that date not actively engaged in any business of his own, but interested in a number of enterprises, and at his death, in 1877, was a director of the Western Insurance company, and the People’s Savings Bank, of Pittsburgh, as also of the Little Saw-Mill Run R. R. Co. He was at one time director of the Cleveland & Pittsburgh R. R. Co. His widow still resides at New Brighton, at the ripe age of eighty-four years. Edwin H. Stowe was carefully nurtured, and enjoyed every advantage of education at command. For a time he was a pupil of the academy at Beaver, but, becoming dissatisfied, withdrew from it and recited to Samuel B. Coulter, a graduate of Jefferson College, and an accomplished scholar. In 1843 he entered Washington College, from which he was graduated in 1845. Removing to Pittsburgh in the fall of 1846, he entered the office of the late Judge Hampton, then a member of Congress from Allegheny county, as a student of law. He was admitted to the bar in 1849, and soon after opened an office as an attorney at law. Of a retiring disposition, he formed few acquaintances outside the profession, but upon the students and members of the bar he made a favorable impression. His progress was at first slow and discouraging; indeed, so much so, that at times he bitterly regretted his choice of a profession. But there was no retreat without disgrace, and he resolved by patience and assiduous study to prepare for better days. In 1855 he entered into partnership with John H. Hampton, Esq., a former schoolmate and the son of his preceptor. Soon business came with unstinted measure to the new firm, and the success of Stowe & Hampton was assured. In 1859 Judge Stowe’s name was first mentioned for a judicial position among the members of the bar, and in 1862 he was nominated by the republican party and elected judge of the common pleas court of Allegheny county. It required but a brief time to gain the confidence of the public as a judge both “competent and honest.” In 1864 Judge Stowe married Miss Emma Vick, youngest daughter of Charles Vick, Esq., an English gentleman of culture and means, who came to this country and settled in Allegheny City. Their three sons were Charles H., who died in 1881 in his fifteenth year; Edwin Walford and Percy Van Deusen, born in 1870 and 1874, respectively. In 1872 Judge Stowe was unanimously reelected a judge of the common pleas court, and in 1882 the same flattering distinction was shown him. His experience on the bench for twenty-five years has extended through all branches of criminal and civil law, and his judicial career has met with public approval. One of the leading Pittsburgh journals thus speaks of him:

A number of the most important cases recently tried in our courts have been tried before him. In the majority of these, of course, the most delicate questions were of a character to be appreciated only by those learned in the law. A few of these are interesting even to a lay mind, however. In the famous Clarke-McCully “Bond of Friendship” case, his ruling that Clarke was a competent witness, afterward upon re argument affirmed by the supreme court, by a divided court, won the case for him. What is known as the “Kiting Main Case” is a leading case on the power of the city councils to discriminate between bidders for public work and award a contract to a bidder other than the lowest. In the Ortwein murder case, which was tried before Judge Stowe, the doctrine was laid down, for the first time in this state, that where the defense of insanity was set up against the charge of murder, the insanity must be proved to the satisfaction of the jury. It was not sufficient to merely raise a reasonable doubt in their minds. In this he was sustained by the supreme court, and it is now settled as law. He also presided at the trial of Lane, the poisoner, and Lenker, who murdered his partner. More recently he has held the scales in the contest of the rivermen with the Hostetter Smithfield Bridge company, the protracted Oak Alley church wrangle, and the Lawrenceville graveyard case.

To these may be added the case against James Nutt for the murder of Nicholas Lyman Dukes, who had killed Nutt’s father shortly before and been acquitted by a jury, and in retaliation for which Nutt killed him, sent from Fayette county, and in which “impulsive insanity” was relied upon as a defense; and the Commonwealth vs. Riddle et al., president and director of the Penn Bank of Pittsburgh, for embezzlement.