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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY 431
'' Ye may dismiss the soot soon as yer plaze, for I '11 have nothing to do
with it.'' The petition Avas of course dismissed.
Stilts is not the real name of Katy's lawyer.
The father of Judge Lewis Goodwin and Homer Goodwin Avas Dr.
Erastus Goodwin, whose first wife was Miss Dotia Gilbert, who was the
first Avoman who ever taught school in Milan ToAvnship and who met
Dr. Goodwin first Avhile he Avas in the vicinity of Sandusky as a soldier
of the War of 1812.
The folloAving picture of the last days of a prominent laAA'yer is taken
from the Register of October 25, 1879:
"The 'Root property,' the last remnant of the estate of Joseph M.
Root is to be sold at auction November 12th. It is a large three story
building built of stone at the corner of Hancock and Adams Street close
by East Washington Park. When built in 1854 it Avas one of the finest
residences in the city and is now used in 1915 as a Guild House by the
Episcopal Church. In 1854 Mr. Root Avas at the height of his political
and professional fame. He had been a member of Congress and had a
large family of daughters and one of the notable social events was the
party Avhen the house was opened. For his daughter Millie he had an
idolatrous affection and when she died a few years later her father never
rallied from the blow. His wife died later and his daughters married
and moved away and the closing years of the old man's life Avere spent
alone either in his great house or in cheap boarding houses. Many a
time has the writer known him after the shadows of imbecility began
to steal over his brain, to sit for hours in a chair placed on the roof of
his house, Avarming himself in the sunshine and looking vacantly over
the Avaters of Sandusky Bay. Finally he rented it for a boarding house
and the writer met him as he was coming out of the gate doAvn town.
Why it was we never knew but Ave were one of the few acquaintances
he never snubbed. This morning he carried a small basket on his arm
and as we approached he mournfully said 'Well I am leaving the old
home not to go back any more. I have rented it to Charley Botsford
for a boarding house and he is going to move in today.'
'' ' But surely Mr. Root you have reserved a room for yourself. You
are too old to turn yourself out of house and home.' 'No,' he said,
'Charley Avants all the room for boarders and I will sleep in my office
and live on crackers and herring among the groceries.' As his imbecility
became Avorse it assumed a form of cynicism and obstinacy Avhich
repelled the proffered care and kindness of his relatives and friends.
The last time Ave saAv him Avas perhaps a year before his death, when he
came into the office of a hotel with a small pail of Avater from a Avell
that had taken his fancy and asking those present to drink and attest
the quality of the Avater. Later he passed yet more rapidly into the later
stages of imbecility and second childhood and in the spring he died.
He never had a son so that Avith his death the name of Joseph Root will
pass from the minds of men. But in the memories of the older men, in
the records of the courts, in the early history of the anti-slavery struggle,