Judge Swan was a member of the Con stitutional Convention of 1850, and served on some of the most important committees of that body. Four general revisions of the Statutes of Ohio were made by Judge Swan. He pub lished several well-known text-books. " A Guide for Executors and Administrators " was published in 1843; Swan's " Pleadings and Precedents under the Code," dedicated "To the Young Gentlemen of the Bar," in 1860. This book is without doubt one of the best books ever published upon this most impor tant branch of the law. When we recall only a portion of the work performed by Judge Swan, we are lost in wonder and amazement. Where he could find the time to accomplish so much in so short a time is incompre hensible. It has been well said by one who knew him, that, " In every station, and always, he was the same quiet, upright, con scientious, patriotic, Christian man, loving home, friends, neighbors, country, and find ing in them, and the duties claimed by them, a means of preparation for, and fore taste of that life to come which Christianity reveals, and which these earthly relationships symbolize and foreshadow." The life and character of this eminent jurist was recently made the subject of a sermon by that dis tinguished divine, Rev. Washington Gladden. Judge Swan was married twice, and left three sons and two daughters surviving him. Jacob BRINKERHOFF was born August 31, 18 10, in New York, and died at Mans field, Ohio, July 19, 1880. His father, Henry I. Brinkerhoff, was a native of Penn sylvania; his grandfather was from Hackensack, New Jersey, and belonged to the old Dutch family of New York, the progenitor of which, Hendrick Brinkerhoff, came to the New Netherlands from Dreutland, Holland, in 1638. Louis Bevier, the progenitor of the family in this country, was one of a band of French refugees, who, after the revoca tion of the Edict of Nantes, fled from religious persecution, and sought toleration in the New
World. Judge Brinkerhoff was taken by his father to Groton, Tompkins County, New York, where he lived until 1825, attending the district school for five or six years. In 1825 they removed to Steuben County, New York, where he remained until he had reached the age of twenty, working on a farm, a life with which he was much in love. But seeing no way by which he could be come the owner of a farm, he decided to study for a profession, and so took up the law. At first, however, he thought of medi cine, but changed to the law after having attended the Academy at Plattsburgh. He became a student in the law office of How ell & Howell in Bath, the county seat of Steuben County, in May, 1834. Subse quently he went to the office of Rodgers & Neaston, and still later to the office of Henry Wells (who afterwards became one of the Supreme Court judges of the State), in Penn Yan, Yates County, where he remained until 1835. He came to Ohio in 1836, where his father owned a farm in Richland County, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in May, 1837. Locating in Mansfield, and forming a partnership with Thomas W. Bartlcy, who was then Prosecuting Attorney, in 1839 he was elected Prosecuting Attorney, which place he filled for four years. In 1843 he was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket. While in Congress, he became a free-soiler, and drew up the fam ous resolutions introduced by David Wilmot, since known as the " Wilmot Proviso "; the original draft of this resolution, in his handwriting, is still in the possession of his family. He served two terms in Congress, and then resumed the practice of law in Mansfield. In 1856 he took his seat on the Supreme Court bench, serving three suc cessive terms, in all fifteen years. On re tiring, he returned to Mansfield, where he spent the remainder of his life. He was held in high esteem by the other members of the Court and by all the members of the Bar who came in contact with him.
