IN MEMORIAM. JOHN W. CHAMPLIN. BY HON. ROGER W. BUTTERFIELD. Judge John W. Champlin, for many years one of our honored Board of Historians, died at his home in Grand Rapids, July 24, 1901. John Wayne Champlin was born at Kingston, Ulster county, New York, February 17, 1831. He was of English descent, his ancestors being amongst the earlier settlers of Connecticut. His years as a boy were passed upon his father's farm and in attendance upon the village school. Later on he attended the academies at Harpersfield and at Stamford and Rhinebeck. It was his first purpose to become a civil engineer. He completed his professional studies in the Delaware Institute, and spent the two years succeeding his graduation in the active practice of that profession. Coming to Michigan in 1854, he entered upon the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1855. From that time he continued the practice of the law for 28 years, until his election as a member of the Supreme court. The growth of his reputation as a lawyer was a gradual and steady one, and at the end of that period he was recognized as amongst the leaders of the bar, not only through the district where he lived, but throughout the State. The range of his practice was very large, and the litigation in which he was retained was amongst the most important. As a lawyer Judge Champlin had very strongly-marked and persistent mental characteristics. It was born in him to love justice, and to revere the system by which justice was secured in civilized society. In the investigation of any legal proposition he was remarkably free from prejudice or bias, or any kind of intellectual one-sidedness. It was the necessity of his mental organization that he should see all sides of a question which he was investigating, that he should consider its application and trace its growth from some established principle of the law. There was in him an honesty that permeated his whole nature, which made him not only fair in his dealings with his fellow men, but honest in the processes of his mind. It was part of his creed never to tamper with his own legal judgment. Animated by a sincere sense of the duty which a man owes to his generation, he held it to be a very high honor to be permitted to perform that duty in securing the right administration of justice. For the accomplishment of that end he held no preparation too laborious and no effort too severe. It was not in him to become a mere advocate for hire. Each year of the 28 added to the breadth and certainty of his legal knowledge and the development of an accurate legal judgment. He was himself an example of what the right practice of the law can do in the developments of the faculties. Judge Champlin was elected a member of the supreme court in 1883, and took his seat on January 1, 1884. He brought to his new position, as the result of his training at the law, a wide acquaintance with men and affairs, a familiarity with the learning of the law, an accurate legal judgment, and a judicial habit of thought, resulting not only from the natural tendency of his mind, but from his legal training. He bore with him to the bench the best wishes of the entire bar of Michigan, by whom he was held in high regard. The conduct of Judge Champlin as a judge upon the bench was not only marked by the traditional courtesy which pertains to the position, but by gentleness and kindness of manner that was the natural expression of his character. His whole bearing expressed what his life showed he felt,-a reverence for justice and its administration. The story of his life as a judge is a story of eight years of hard, conscientious work, ably done. The profound reverence which Judge Champlin had for the law as established may have tended to make him at times too conservative, but there is no doubt that this very conservatism was a factor for good in the work of the whole court during the time he was a member of it. It is a great deal to say of any ones work as a judge, that it maintains the traditions of the Supreme Court of Michigan, and that it has added to the usefulness and reputation of that court. We think that can fairly be said of Judge Champlin's work. The labor of a life buried in judicial opinions soon passes from the mind of the public, but those familiar with that work, and who know its value, know that it is doing well of that work which makes modern civil life successful or even possible, and the faithful worker here deserves well of his generation and of his country. If appreciation is to come only from those who by professional training are prepared to appreciate the work and its doing, it is all the more important that it be fairly and generously given. In 1887, in acknowledgment of his position at the bar, the degree of doctor of laws was conferred upon him by the University of Michigan. After retiring from the Supreme Court, Judge Champlin resumed the practice of the law, which he continued until his death. He was appointed one of the lecturers at the law school of Ann Arbor, where for five years he served the university and the profession in the acceptable performance of that duty which every lawyer owes to those who are to succeed him in the profession. As a man Judge Champlin, in his character, took what was best in life from a broad horizon. There was no good cause that did not find in him a friend. His life was full of acts of charity and helpfulness, known only to those immediately connected with him, but which left him, at the end of a long and remunerative practice, a poor man. He kept all his life his love for books. The story of the Nation's history, and the growth and development of his own State, were always dear to him. Caring little for distinctions of creed, he lived and died in a profound faith in the loving and tender care of a Divine Ruler. Alongside of his rugged, hard sense and his intellectual strength there was a certain simplicity of character, that kept his heart young, and made him rejoice in simple things. When the weariness of his latter years came on him, he turned to the mountains and woods for strength, with the delight almost of a child. He was of a type of man to whom a belief was a rule of life. It was not possible for him to turn his course hither and thither at every cry of the multitude. He was true to himself, and, being true to himself, he was true to every trust reposed in him in every relation in life. It is well that the memory of such a man should be preserved. It is by such lives as his that institutions are preserved and made honorable to those who come after them. To those of his generation who knew him, there will be no need of formal record. On their hearts he has left indelibly the impression of his own strong, beautiful, and helpful life. |