John Dean Caton (March 19, 1812July 30, 1895) was an American

associate justice An associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some ...

and chief justice of the

Illinois Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Illinois is the state supreme court, the highest court of the judiciary of Illinois. The court's authority is granted in Article VI of the current Illinois Constitution, which provides for seven justices elected from the fiv ...

Family, early life, education

Caton was born in a Quaker family in

Monroe County, New York Monroe County is a county in the U.S. state of New York, located along Lake Ontario's southern shore. As of 2022, the population was 752,035, according to Census Bureau estimates. Its county seat and largest city is Rochester. The county is ...

, on March 19, 1812. His father died when he was 3 years old and his mother then brought the family to her brother's farm near

Utica, New York Utica () is the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The tenth-most populous city in New York, its population was 65,283 in the 2020 census. It is located on the Mohawk River in the Mohawk Valley at the foot of the Adiro ...

. The family managed to gather the money needed to send him to the

Utica Academy Utica Free Academy, whose predecessor, Utica Academy, opened in 1814, was a high school in Utica, New York, which operated from 1840 until 1990, when it was consolidated with Thomas R. Proctor High School. The combined entity operated briefly at U ...

. During his studies, he worked as a teacher in Utica. He studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and

civil engineering Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...

. Later he married Laura A. Sheril; they had a son, Arthur Caton (1849/50–1904).

Law practice

In 1833, Caton moved to Chicago, then a small town, and opened the first

law office A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, respon ...

there with his partner, Giles Spring. In his book, ''Early Bench and Bar of Illinois'', inspired by an 1893 speech given to the Illinois Bar Association, Judge Caton claims to have tried the first

jury A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence, make Question of fact, findings of fact, and render an impartiality, impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a sentence (law), penalty or Judgmen ...

case in a

court of record A court of record is a trial court or appellate court in which a record of the proceedings is captured and preserved, for the possibility of appeal. A court clerk or a court reporter takes down a record of oral proceedings. That written record ...

in Cook County, Illinois. He recounts his experiences riding the circuit in the early days of Illinois statehood, and his later appointment to the Illinois Supreme Court, a period of some sixty years. He relates a number of humorous anecdotes about his days as a circuit rider.

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

was an attorney in 214 cases in the Illinois Supreme Court in which Caton was a justice.

Telegraph

Judge Caton was an early adopter of

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

technology. As a young lawyer, he was asked by a Rochester, New York, friend, Henry O'Riley, and his friends in Ottawa to organize the Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company at a meeting in Peoria, Illinois. Caton was elected one of the directors of the new company and played an active role in getting the right of way for the erection of telegraph poles across the state. The Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company was a Morse patentee company that was a profitable and well-connected company on the western frontier after 1849. Caton and his Ottawa friends founded a telegraph instrument-making company in Ottawa, Illinois, initially staffed largely by German immigrant instrument makers. Caton Telegraph Instrument Company was a large-scale producer of high-quality instruments and was a major supplier of instruments in the Illinois and Mississippi Valleys. Ottawa was the seat of the third district of the Illinois Supreme Court where Judge Caton presided. Caton and his interest in the Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company owned north-south telegraph lines that were a significant monopoly that was eventually key to the success of the Rochester-based Western Union telegraph company's attempt to build a line to St. Louis and further west as the Illinois and Mississippi and Caton's own private telegraph companies had agreements with most of the railroads in Illinois. Eventually, Caton and his friends sold the telegraph lines to Western Union, and later, Caton sold his telegraph instrument manufacturing company located in Ottawa, Illinois, to Western Electric Company, which consolidated their Cleveland, Ohio manufacturing into the larger and more advance facility in Ottawa after the Civil War in 1868. The Ottawa telegraph instrument designs, patents, and production methods were eventually consolidated into the post-1872 Chicago Western Electric facilities on Kinzie Avenue.

Natural history and Darwin

By the late 1860s, his wealth allowed him to start studying natural history and traveling. He published several authoritative papers and books, among which ''The Antelope and Deer of America'' (1877). He exchanged correspondance with

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, who cited his work numerous times in ''The descent of man'' (1871). When Darwin’s sons

George George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

and

Francis Francis may refer to: People and characters *Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church (2013–2025) *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Francis (surname) * Francis, a character played by YouTuber Boogie2 ...

visited the United States in 1871, he sent a letter of introduction with them to Caton.Short letter from Darwin to Caton, introducing his sons
on the occasion of their voyage to America in 1871. On ''darwinproject.ac.uk'', John van Wyhe, Darwin Online. Later, Caton also published books and papers on Hawaii, Norway, and on Illinois history.

Publications

* (1863
''The position and policy of the Democratic Party''
letter to Gov. H. Seymour, ''New York Argus'' * (1865) ''Death of Lincoln : proceedings in the Supreme Court of Illinois : presentation of the bar resolutions in regard to Mr. Lincoln's decease'', Chicago, J.W. Middleton & Co., * (1869
''Origin of the prairies''
(read before the Ottawa Academy of Natural Sciences on December 30, 1869), ''Transactions of the Ottawa Academy of Natural Sciences'', 30 p., * (1870
''Our courtship and our marriage : with incidents preceding and relating thereto, and observations suggested thereby : intended exclusively for our family''
280 p., * (1870) ''The last of the Illinois, and a sketch of the Pottawatomies'' (read before the Chicago Historical Society on December 13, 1870), Chicago, ed. Rand, McNally & Co. (reedited 1876, Fergus Printing Co., Chicago), 36 p., * (1875) ''A summer in Norway; with notes on the industries, habits, customs and peculiarities of the people, the history and institutions of the country,...'', Chicago, ed. Jansen, McClurg & Co., 401 p. + 6 pl., * (1877
''The antelope and deer of America''
Boston, ed. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (revised edition in 1881), 426 p., * (1880
''Miscellanies''
Houghton, Osgood & Co., 360 p. * Shields, George Oliver (editor), with numerous contributors including * (1893
''Early bench and bar of Illinois''
Chicago Legal News Company, 252 p., *(1898) ''Argument favoring the annexation of Hawaii'', 15 p., . This wa
part of the documents of reference for the Congress
while debating the annexation of Hawaï between 1893 and 1898.

Family, early life, education

Law practice

Telegraph

Natural history and Darwin

Publications

References

See also

Bibliography