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HON. CHARLES B. STUART
Vol. 3, p. 961

Hon. Charles b. STUART, one of the most prominent members of the
Oklahoma bar, is a native of Virginia, born April 4, 1858, near the
Town of Boydton, in Mecklinberg County, the ordinal seat of Randolph-
Macon College. His paternal grandparents, John Stuart and Lucy HORNE,
were of Scotch-Irish descent, and came form England to Virginia. His
maternal grandparents were Edward TOONE and Mary WILSON, both natives
of Scotland, who came to America. His father, John W. Stuart, with an
elder brother, Charles B. Stuart, after whom the subject of this
sketch was named, were educators and professors in the State of
Virginia, whence they removed to Louisiana about 1860, locating at
Mansfield, where the Methodist State College is located, and became
respectively president and manager of that institution, of which they
had charge about twenty years.

Young Stuart attended the state schools of Louisiana until 1873,
when his father died. His widowed mother and his uncle removed to
Texas, but he returned to his native state, and received his academic
education at Randolph-Macon College, which had then been removed from
Boydton to Ashland. Having pursued a course in the study of law, he
was admitted to the bar, and began the practice of his profession at
Marshall, Texas, where he was assistant attorney of the Texas-Pacific
Railway Company. Afterward he removed to Gainesville, Texas, and in
1903 became a citizen of Oklahoma, when he was appointed by President
CLEVELAND as United States Judge for the Indian Territory, being the
second incumbent of that position.

In Gainesville, Texas, he attained great prominence and success in
his profession, being successively the head of various law firms
which included as associates Joseph W. BAILEY, afterward member of
Congress and United States senator; Yancey LEWIS, subsequently judge
of the United States Court for the Central District of the Indian
Territory, professor of law and dean of the law department of the
University of Texas; J. L. HARRIS, who founded a law firm in Dallas,
Texas, and acquired great reputation and an immense practice.

The eldest brother of Judge Stuart, John E. Stuart, was taken very
ill at Marshall, Texas, in 1883, and on February 3rd, of that year,
another Brother, G. W. Stuart, sent a telegram from Waco to Charles
B. Stuart announcing the serious illness of their brother and asking
him to come on the first train. This telegram was not delivered until
some time later after the brother was buried. Charles B. Stuart
informed the telegraph authorities that if they would discharge the
employees who were at fault in the delay he would not bring suit,
that he intended to punish those that were responsible in some way
for the wrong.

At this time he had not been long in practice, and some of the
ablest lawyers of the State of Texas advised him that he could not
recover, and endeavored to dissuade him from bringing suit. However,
he persisted in his determination, brought action in the District
Court of Harrison County, Texas, and won his case, thus establishing
a precedent which has ever been followed in the State of Texas, and
in several other American states, some have of which have adopted
statutes, and others have established the principle by virtue of
decisions.

Speaking of this decision Judge Stuart said: "The doctrine announced
in this decision may not be the better and the sounder one, but to
say the least it is the more humane and more in accord with a high
conception of concrete justice." Judge Stuart obtained several other
decisions which have become established precedents, and in his
subsequent career upon the bench made decisions which are today the
recognized authority in similar cases. In the case of a railroad
company against a citizen in Texas he was leading counselor, and
succeeded in establishing the doctrine in that state that in case of
a physical interference with any right, public of private, which the
owners or occupants of the property are entitled by law to make use
of in connection with such property, even though it gives an
additional market value, the owner or occupant is entitled to a
compensation if by reason to such interference the property, as
property, is lessened in value even though no property is actually
taken.

In another pioneer case not only in Texas, but almost in American
jurisprudence, wherein the principal is announced that when insolvent
merchants, for the purpose of maintaining their credit, make false
statements to a commercial agency as to their financial ability and
condition, expecting their statements to be circulated and acted
upon, and having by means thereof made a purchase of goods, the
seller discovering the fraud can reclaim his goods, even against an
attachment levied by other creditors upon them. This is a familiar
doctrine now in practically every state. Judge Stuart was leading
counsel for the side in that case that contended for this rule.

In 1893 Mr. Stuart was appointed United States Judge for the Indian
Territory, and two years later an act of Congress created three
judicial districts in the Indian Territory, upon which Judge Stuart
became Judge in the Central District of the Territory, and first
Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals of the Territory.
Within a few months thereafter he resigned his position on the bench
to become general attorney for the C. O. & G. Railway Company, and
continued in this position until the railroad was acquired by the
Rock Island System, and was thereafter special attorney for the
system in the Indian Territory and Arkansas, until he resigned in
1907.

As judge he was called upon to decide many important and anomalous
questions. In one of these cases the Choctaw sheriff levied upon and
proposed to sell certain brick buildings in the City of South
McAlester on the ground that the owner was a non-citizen and not
entitled to construct or own improvements, even within towns, on the
Choctaw Reservation. Under Judge Stuart's decision the sheriff was
restrained from selling this property and the decision had great
influence in paving the way for the building and population of towns
within the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. In this case there were no
precedents, but Judge Stuart met the exigency with the same
fortitude, learning, discrimination and courage which distinguished
his predecessor in the growth of the English law. Judge Stuart was
the second president of the Indian Territory Bar Association, and the
first president of the Oklahoma Bat Association, which formed by the
consolidation of the two associations when the territories were
admitted as a state. He has continued in practice with remarkable
success, and his firm probably represents more coal companies than
any other in the state, besides conducting a very large
general practice.

His contemporary, Hon. R. L. WILLIAMS, chief justice of the Supreme
Court of Oklahoma, said of him: "While his career on the bench was
creditable, marked with integrity and characterized by ability, yet
if we were called upon to say in what field he signally excels, we
would say that it was in the forum, rather than on the bench. In the
realm of
thought, in magnetic and persuasive power as to overwhelm others and
induce them to agree with him, he has no superior, and but few
equals. He is one of the greatest lawyers of the Southwest within our
acquaintance; he probably has no superior as an advocate in the trial
of a case, at the same time having very few, if any, superiors as an
all-around attorney.

Born in an environment of education and culture; endowed by nature
with a masterful, logical mind, when thrown into contest with the
great lawyers of the country, he has no reason to acknowledge any
superior. Not only is he great in the civil branch of the law, but in
the criminal trials. The accused who is so fortunate as to retain his
services in his behalf has occasion for a renewal of hope that he may
escape the pains and penalties of the law. Courteous, logical,
concise, forceful, discriminating, masterful and eloquent, possessing
not only a comprehensive knowledge of all its probative force of
testimony, he stands in the forum like Saul of old, commanding the
admiration of all. Socially a prince, ethically to be emulated - long
after he has passed from this earthly home - he will be admired by
those who come after him."

Typed for OKGenWeb by: Vickie Neill Taylor, January 12, 1999.