Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1905 — REVERED JURIST DEAD [ARTICLE]

REVERED JURIST DEAD

Judge Murray F. Tuley, of Chicago, Has Adjourned Court for All Time. HE BREAKS DOWN IN HARNESS But Was Full or Years and Honors When Time Said “Stop’’—His Life and Services. Milwaukee, Dec. 20.—Judge Tuley, of Chicago, died at the Pennoyer sanatorium in Kenosha at 2:30 p. m. yesterday. He went to the sanatorium on Oct. 31 suffering Trom nervous exhaustion caused by overwork,, and failed gradually until the end came. The funeral will be held at his home in Chicago and will be private. Was Born in Old Kentucky. Judge Tuley was born in Louisville, Ky., on March 4, 1827. His parents were of English extraction, being descended from early Virginia settlers who had moved west His father died when he was 5 years old, but his mother gave the child a thorough schooling in the Louisville public schools. At the age of 15 the youth became a clerk in a country store, but found time for the study of law. In 1843, when Murray was 16 years old, his mother was married to Colonel Richard J. Hamilton, a Chicago attorney, who then was well-known throughout the west. Family Moves to Chicago. The family removed to Chicago and the l>oy entered his foster father’s law office. Three years later he went back to Louisville and took a course In law under the tutelage of Duncan Loughborough and Judge Pirie in the Louisville Law Institute. On his return to Chicago in 1847, young Tuley was admitted to the bar and started to practice law. But the Mexican war was coming on. and as a result of the excitement during the succeeding months and because threatened with consumption. Tuley enlisted In company F, Fifth Illinois volunteers, the regiment commanded by Colonel Newby, and was elected first lieutenant of his company. Fights in the Laat, Battle. The regiment went to the front as part of the brigade commanded by General Sterling Price, afterward one of the Confederate generals in the civil war. Young Tuley saw some active service in the campaign, but his regiment got no farther than New Mexico, where a part of the brigade fought the last battle of the war. He fought through one campaign subsequently against the Navajo Indians, and then the regiment was ordered back to Illinois to be mustered out. But Tuley got himself mustered out at the front and hung out his shingle as a lawyer in Santa Fe. N. M.

IS PITTED AGAINST J. E. GARY Honored in the Territory, but Finally Returns to Chicago. Also practicing law at Santa Fe was Joseph E. Gary, another young man whom the thirst for adventure had drawn to the frontier. Tuley and Gary met for the first time as opposing counsel in a murder case. In that case began the friendship of the tw«young men. which was to last a lifetime. From 1849 to 1851 Tuley served as attorney general of New Mexico. He was a member of the territorial legislature in the winter of 1853-1854. In the summer of the latter year he returned to Chicago, and a few years later young Gary also located at Chicago. The professional life of Judge Tuley in Chicago was interwoven with the history of the judiciary in Cook county. He had seen the growth of the courts from a bench of one judge to forty. He took personal part in constitutional conventions and the stamp of his mind is left on statutory changes of the code of Illinois. He practiced law at Chicago until 1879. when he was elected circuit judge, and from that time he had remained on the bench. The work of Tuley as a judge long was confined in the main to chancery cases Involving wills, real estate, and trusts of various kinds. Of recent years, however, be had been assigned for considerable periods to the criminal branch of the circuit court. The distinguished cases which he decided were listed a year or two ago and were found to number more than 300. He was always a worker; bls court opened early and closed late; he often heard two cases at the same time—one in court and one in chambers. But with all his professional activity Judge Tuley never was too busy to take aggressive Interest in all public questions. He was a leader in the local Democratic organization. He attended precinct and ward meetings, had been a delegate to city and county and state conventions, and w-as active in stump speaking during campaigns. For the last few- years he had been an advocate of municipal ownership, and originated the idea of running Jndge Dunne for mayor; Dunne lieing also a ihunicipal ownership man. Judge Tuley was ever associated in he public mind with Judge Gary. A singular coincidence ruled the lives of these two men. A full generation they served on the bench, Judge Tuley a steadfast Democrat and Judge Gary a stanch Republican. Judge Tuley married in 1851 Miss Katherine Edmonson, of Missouri.