Judge Ezra Van Mess Dean – Common Pleas Judge 1884 -1886
Ironton Register, Thursday, February 20, 1868
MITE – The Mite Society of the Presbyterian Church will meet tomorrow (Friday) evening at the residence of E. V. Dean, Esq. All are invited.
Ironton Register, Thursday, February 13, 1890
Mr. and Mrs. E. V. Dean returned last Monday. There were at St. Paul, Minn., Saturday, when a telegram giving the news of the death of Mrs. Dean’s sister, Mrs. Hill, reached them, which hurried them home. They were going to Ft. Spelling to visit their son, Lieut. Dean, who is stationed there. When Mr. Dean left Ironton, he went to Wooster, where he attended the funeral of John McSweeney. Mrs. Dean, who had been visiting her daughter in Illinois since last December, joined Mr. D. in Chicago, and together they had gone to Minnesota, where their trip sadly ended.
Ironton Register, Thursday, June 19, 1890
The case of E. V. Dean vs. the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette for libel is before the Superior Court at Cincinnati, Judge Hunt presiding. Mr. Dean’s attorneys are Follett and McGillivray; the Com. – Gazette’s, T. M. Hinkle. It will be remembered that the cause of the suit is the publication of a violent personal attack on Mr. Dean in the shape of a letter from Mrs. Libbie McCune.
Ironton Register, Thursday, June 18, 1896
We have a fish story from Judge E. V. Dean, now recuperating in the delightful climate of Ft. Walla Walla, state of Washington. It is that he himself caught, one afternoon, 24 mountain trout, one of which measured 14 inches in length. The Judge and Mrs. Dean are intensely enjoying their western trip and may not be home before August.
Ironton Register, Thursday, August 17, 1899
E. V. Dean has given up his downtown office and attends to his legal business at home.
Ironton Register, Thursday, August 17, 1899
The Board of Election was organized Monday. E. V. Dean was chosen Chief Deputy and Thos. J. Hayes, clerk, at $100 a year.
Obituary
Ironton Register, January 12, 1916 – Judge Dean Passed Away This Morning.
Judge E. V. Dean, soldier, jurist, and statesman, one of the oldest and most prominent men of affairs in Ironton, and a member of the famous Dean family, whose name has been associated with the history of this country since the early Colonial days when the fore-runner immigrated to this country from England, passed away quietly this morning at his home on south Fourth Street.
The Judge was past 90 years of age and had been ill only a few days, suffering first from la grippe and then pneumonia. His condition had been very critical all week, and his family had been watching anxiously at his bedside, hoping against hope that the life of one so dear to them might be spared. The end came quietly this morning at 11:30 when the Judge folded his arms in a restful position and breathed his last.
Judge Dean was born at Wooster, O., Oct. 22, 1825, the son of Judge Ezra Dean, Sr., one of the finest and most fearless of the early lawyers and judges of this state and county, the story of whose eventful life reads more like a romance than the biography of a real character. He was, by turns, a farmer, soldier, lawyer, statesman, and judge, and his qualities for leadership and ability seemed to have been given.
The early education of Judge Dean was received at Oberlin and Western Reserve Colleges, and he was a graduate of Washington and Jefferson University. Being at the time of his death and for some years previous, the oldest living alumni, the only surviving member of the Class of “47”. Following his graduation from the university, he read law in his father’s office and was admitted to the bar in 1850. The next year he was united in marriage to Miss Charlotte A. Weaver, with whom he was singularly happy and who still survives him.
In 1853 the public life of Judge Dean began when he was elected to the State Legislature, where he served for two years, being the youngest man on the assembly floor. During the Civil War, he enlisted in the 130th Ohio Volunteer Infantry and was commissioned Quartermaster with the rank of Captain.
He was subsequently made Brigade Quartermaster, serving for a considerable time. Most of his service was spent in the Southwest, being present at the siege and surrender of Vicksburg. After serving in the army, he for a time engaged in the practice of law with his father at Wooster, but came to Ironton in 1864 and has since been a resident of this city, where he continued to practice his profession until 1898, when he retired from active practice. However, he continued to keep abreast of the time and to take an interest in the legal affairs of his son, Ezra Dean.
Though a staunch Democrat, he was elected successively to the offices of Prosecuting Attorney and Common Pleas Judge in this county, always a stronghold of Republicanism, in itself a grand tribute to the man’s character and to his sterling ability. All men, regardless of their party affiliations, respected and admired him for this sterling worth and high character, which was impressed upon all with whom he came in contact.
He was a lawyer of the old type and school, ever courteous and never forgetting that he was a gentleman. He ranked high in his profession, enjoyed extensive practice, was untiring, and could do an immense amount of work. Presbyterian and this life were following the strict rules of his faith. No man ever questioned the motives of Judge Dean.
Besides his beloved wife, he is survived by the following children, Mrs. J. M. Hill, Mrs. Charlotte Wilkinson of Columbus; Dora Dean Cress of Chicago; Ezra Dean, Maj. Jas. T. Dean, U. S. A., and Mrs. W. P. Lewis. The funeral services will be held Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock from the residence with interment at Woodland under the direction of Bingaman & Jones.
Morning Irontonian, Thursday, January 13, 1916 – Judge Ezra Dean and Judge Ezra V. Dean.
The following little account of Judge Ezra Dean and his son, Judge Ezra V. Dean, will be of interest to the many friends of the Judge, who yesterday departed this earth and entered upon his heavenly reward with that great Judge on High. The articles are by a prominent political writer of a Columbus newspaper and follow in detail:
At the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century, there came into Wayne county, Ohio, a tall, graceful affable, and agreeable young man of military bearing and aplomb and striking intelligent features in search of. There found, a suitable location to enter upon the practice of his profession – the law.
He was born in Hillsdale, N. Y., on April 9, 1795. His father had been a soldier and an officer of the New York line in the Revolution. The son had been a soldier and an officer in the New York forces in the war of 1812. He possessed a good education for that day and was mentally endowed beyond most of his fellows.
With the mere suggestion of it, it goes that this young man, with a family growing up around him, soon possessed the confidence of the people of Wooster and Wayne counties and ranked among the foremost citizens of the entire state.
Twelve years after his arrival in Ohio, in 1804, the state legislature, by a unanimous vote, acting under the powers of the first constitution, elected him president judge of the Eleventh judicial circuit, which included the entire northeastern section of the state. Seven years later, the legislature unanimously elected him to a second term and would have chosen him again had he not declined the honor.
In 1840 he was elected to congress from the Eighteenth district, comprising Wayne and Stark counties; in 1842 was re-elected from the same district, and two years later, declining to be a candidate, was succeeded by General David A. Starkweather. He was a member of the house’s judiciary committee, the duties he was specially fitted to perform.
Upon leaving Congress, he devoted himself to the practice of his profession. He continued in active life until 1872, full of physical and mental vigor, privacy, civic enterprise, and laudable ambitions to the last.
The late Andrew H. Byers, who knew him intimately, was one to relate many pleasing stories of his life and characteristics, conveying some idea of his striking physical appearance and great mental endowments. That was Judge Ezra Dean, whose life extended from 1875 to 1872 – three-quarters of the way across the nineteenth century.
Some years ago, during a pre-election campaign, it transpired at almost the last moment that a prominent orator from another state, who was to speak at Ironton, had missed the necessary railroad connections. The committee hustled me off to the depot to catch an outgoing train and supply the vacancy, promising to notify the Ironton chairman by wire of the necessary speaker change.
As though it was not a sufficient trial of a diffident man’s nerve to be sent to make another man’s speech, the committee failed to send the telegram, so that when I reached Tom Jones’ hostelry, where the train stopped, a crowd of boys was whooping and hurrahing for the other man.
At the same time, the band played, and the local chairman informed me that the hall was already packed, awaiting Senator Blackburn’s appearance, and then, for the first time, I learned that the senator could not possibly reach the city and that I had been sent to take his place.
The chairman also pleaded diffidence and, likewise, hoarseness when I asked him to go ahead and explain things, thus necessitating me to make both an apology and an attempt to make a speech. We entered the stage from the rear, and the chairman of the evening introduced me with the statement that I would explain why the senator was not present.
This came near unnerving me, and I would have done so had I not observed back in the center of the hall, seated next to the middle aisle, a man who would be picked out in any audience of 10,000, the sight of whom restored my nerves to a normal condition.
I proceeded to explain why the audience was to be disappointed by the failure of the orator who had been advertised. Before the explanation was made, the gentleman referred to arose from his chair and, towering over six feet tall, grandly poised and straight as an arrow, interposed:
“Proceed with your speech, sir; you do not need to make an apology to this audience; it is here to listen to any man who will talk to the point,” and then, with a graceful wave of his hand and a curtly bow, he took his seat. He seemed to understand why the senator was not there instinctively and, simultaneously, knew how to break the ice for me.
After it was over, I had a vague and general idea of the substance of my address. But as I proceeded, I realized, by watching the mobile and shining snow-crowned face of my stately monitor and listening to the applause from footlight to the farthest gallery, that I was at least pleasing, if not instructing, the great audience.
En passant: I feel yet as I felt then, that I was delivering the speech telepathically – that I was repeating in words the consecutive thoughts of that most striking and most widely-known man in the audience – unconsciously, as it were, assimilating and uttering his thoughts on the subjects under discussion.
He was old enough in 1853 to come to the Ohio legislature from Wayne county and rank among the ablest thinkers of this day. I had known and listened to him for a quarter of a century – always a delighted and instructed listener, too. I never heard him talk for five minutes without hearing something brilliant, edifying, and worth treasuring in my memory.
He is Judge Ezra V. Dean of Ironton and the present tense. The sweep of his keen intelligence and observation extends from the third decade of the nineteenth century into the waning of the first decade of the twentieth.
The twain, in conjunction, have noted and contributed to human civilization from one century across the second and into the full-blown morning of the third. William A. Taylor.
Morning Irontonian, February 11, 1923 – abstract of the wife’s obituary.
Mrs. Ezra Van Mess Dean, 90 years of age, died at her home on south 4th street Saturday. The deceased was the widow of the late Judge E. V. Dean and was born in York, Pa., in 1833, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Weaver.
In early girlhood, she moved to Wooster and, in 1851, was married to Ezra Van Mess Dean, to which union eight children were born. Mr. Dean died several years ago, and the following children survive: Mrs. J. M. Hill of this city, Mrs. G. O. Cress of St. Louis, General James T. Dean of Ft. Benjamin Harrison, Mrs. Thomas B. Hobson of Columbus, Mrs. Moelchert and Captain Parry Lewis of Washington, D.C. Burial at Woodland [Cemetery, Ironton, Ohio]
Ironton Register, February 1, 1872 – obituary of his father.
Judge Dean, the father of E. V. Dean of this city, died last Friday and was buried at Woodland. He was 77 years old. For a long time, he was a Common Pleas Judge in the Wooster district and also a member of Congress. He had been making his home with his son in this place for some time.
0 Comments