Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1892 — A Noted Western Character. [ARTICLE]

A Noted Western Character.

The name of Daviess, pronounced Davis, or, by some, Davees, recalls the memory of one of the most original characters in the history of the West. Joseph Hamilton Daviess, known as Jo Daviess, was a native of Virginia, but his history is identified with that of Kentucky, whither his parents removed in 1779, when he was five years old. By profession he was a lawyer, but his eccentrictries are so numerous that his legal character is almost lost to sight in the biographical sketches given of him, though no doubt exists as to his learning or talent as a pleader. Instead of riding hi- 1 circuit, as was then common, he, dressed in a half-Indian garb, would range the woods from town to town where courts were held, and in this half-savage costume would appear in court and argUe his cases. Daviess was the fiist Western lawyer to plead a case in the United States Supreme Court. The day on which his case was set he entered the courtroom in Washington ai rayed in a buckskin hunting shirt, wampum belt, leather breeches, fringed at the seams, and took a seat just outside the bar, where, becoming hungry, he comfortably disposed of a lunch taken from his |»ocket, mid consisting of bread and cheese. One of the attendants was about to put him out, when the case in which he was counsel was called, and he arose and, after announcing himself, proceeded to deliver a speech that electrified the audience, convinced the liench, and won the suit. For many years his popularity was very great, but, according to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, he lost his hold on the public by attempting a prosecution of Aaron Burr; nor did subsequent disclosures of Burr’s operations reinstate him in the public favor. He was killed in the battle of Tippecanoe, while heading a gallant and successful charge against the Indians.