1880 History of Blair County - Johnstown, PA

HISTORY OF ALTOONA AND I5LAIK COUNTY. 35Joshua. F. Cox, and a. luunhcr of others. Aiuoiii;' tliciii was JohnBhxlji'ctt, of Bt'dford, noted for liis acciuirenients in ^-eneral literature,his i)oeti('aI tastes, and wit. Tiiere was also admitted durin.ii- the firstyear of the court a lawyer noted in the whole ])rofession aloui;- theJuniuta Valley, Mr. Isaac Fisher, of Huntin^-don." Of the cases tried and suits entered in the thirty yeai's since theoru'anization of the county, when compared with thepopidation, thea^U'gre^n'ate seems enormous. In the Common Pleas, includin,*;- judg--ment hills, appeals and certioraris, there have ])een entered 89,205eases; in the (Quarter Sessions, 2,(iI9 cases; in the Oyer and Terminer,\)[) cases, making- altog-ether 41,928. In this are not includedthe lai'g'e nund)er of estates partitioned or appraised in the Orphans'Court, nor the trust accounts of assignees and othertrustees, settledin the Common Pleas. There have passed through tlu^ Orpiians'Court, for confirmation and allowance, l,*7tO accounts of executorsand administrators, many of them involving protracted litigation I)efoveauditors and on exceptions to auditors' reports."Judge Black took forty-four verdicts. Judge Taylor eight hundredand seventx'-eight ; and there liave been taken since four hundredand ninety-five. Of course this, as every lawyer knows, does notshow" the extent of actual work done in the trial of causes ; for manyof them, after hours, and sometimes days of trial, "go off," either hynon suit or settlement of the parties." Bv the act of Assembly erecting the county, all uinh'terminedissues between parties resident on the territory out of which it wasformed, were to be transferred to the records of the new county."The first suit in the Common Pleas is one to Xo. 43, Augustterm, 1826, of Huntingdon county, transferred. It is an action ofdebt by John Wilson and Rachael Buchanan, executors of Dr. JohnE. Buchanan, deceased, against William Smith, executor of JohnSteel, deceased. Wiieii it was brought, in 1826, Judges Burnside,Adams and McCune were on the bench in Huntingdon county. Smithis marked attorney for plaintift" and Allison and Steel for defendant.As a))penrs from tlie record, more than seventy continuances weremarked during tlie twenty years it stood on the Huntingdon countydocket, and five after its transfer to Blair."The first case In'ought originally in this county, is a libel fordivorce;subpa-na issued June 23, 1840, by Mary Armstrong againsther husband, John Armstrong. T. J. Coffey is attorney for libellant.John Cox, e.