San Francisco County
Biographies
HENRY E. HIGHTON
HENRY E. HIGHTON is a man who possesses a strong and
original character. Among the many talented and brilliant members of the
legal profession on this coast, he is found in the foremost rank,
and his career as a lawyer furnishes an excellent illustration of the power of
labor when intelligently directed. Although a native of England, Mr. Highton has from his youth been a resident of this country
and is thoroughly identified with its best interests and its free
institutions. Without apology a sketch of his life is here presented;
indeed, with no mention of him a history of this portion of California would be
incomplete.
Henry
Edward Highton was born in Liverpool, England, July
31, 1836, and is a descendant of an ancestry the name of which is interwoven
with modern English history and English classics. His father, Edward Rayner Highton, was born in
Leicester, September 11, 1811, and in his native land as well as in this
country occupied many prominent and influential positions. Henry E.
Commenced his education in Liverpool, made rapid progress in his studies and
took every first prize for classics offered to his class while he was at
school. It was his intention to complete his education at Rugby and Oxford,
but from this purpose he was diverted by emigrating to
America with his father in 1848, being then twelve years of age. At
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the elder Highton and his son
settled, and a few months later, when the gold fever raged throughout the
country, they started across the plains for California, arriving at Weavertown September 3, 1849. Until 1856, with the
exception of a few months passed at Sacramento, he lived "in the
mines," engaged in various occupations. During all this time he kept
in view his original purpose, that of preparing himself for the law, studying
in a desultory way, but not altogether without system.
In
1856, at the age of twenty-one, he came to San Francisco without money and with
only one acquaintance there. For a time he was engaged in newspaper work,
being connected with the San Francisco Chronicle, then
published, which was no relative of the existing paper of that name, and also
contributing to the Golden Era, Spirit of the Times and the San
Francisco Herald, meanwhile pursuing his law studies. July 3, 1860,
he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court, answering correctly every
question in the examination. Acting upon the advice of Oscar L. Shafter,
with whom he had studied law and who was a warm personal friend of his, he
began his law practice in Sonoma. In the fall of 1860, however, he
returned to San Francisco, and since that time has been identified with the
legal profession in this city. He has never held nor aspired to public
office, preferring rather to concentrate his energies in his law work, and from
the beginning his professional career has been one of signal success. He
has had an extensive patronage, and some of the
heaviest civil cases in the State. His practice has mostly been in
real-estate, commercial and civil suits, in all the courts, State and
Federal. He has never defended a man identified with the criminal class,
but has defended ten or a dozen persons charged with assault under exceptional
circumstances, and only one–Gardner– was convicted, and that of murder in the
second degree, which, considering the state of public excitement, was regarded
as a victory. These cases, like many others in his civil practice, were
complicated with a high state of public feeling, and were reported throughout
the United States and to some extent even in Europe.
Other
notable cases were I. M. Holbach, in San Francisco;
Gilmore & Taylor, in Solano county; Harlan, in Yolo county, and H. H.
Pearson, at Provo, in Utah Territory. With the late Hall McAllister he
also defended Adolph B. Spreckels for shooting M. H.
De Young. Indeed, a bare enumeration of the important cases in which Mr. Highton has been engaged would fill several pages.
Mr.
Highton has also delivered many campaign speeches,
being a Democrat,–probably three or four in each campaign. During the last
Presidential campaign he was urgently invited to speak in New York, but the
press of business compelled him to decline. He was chosen orator of the
day August 24, 1883, at the laying of the corner-stone of the Garfield monument
in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, and, before a distinguished audience of
perhaps 80,000 people, he delivered a most eloquent address. Has also
delivered an address before the State Agricultural Society, Fourth of July
orations at San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, Alvarado, Santa Rosa and other
places, addresses and lectures before the Young Men’s Christian Association,
and the St. Andrews Society Teachers’ convention and numerous Masonic bodies,
the oration at the joint celebration of Admission Day, September 9, 1890, by
the Pioneers and Native Sons, at San Francisco, etc. Nearly all his
orations, speeches, lectures, etc., have been published in full.
Mr. Highton is a Master and
Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar, and served as Grand Master in
1883. He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal church,
in which body he has served in diocesan conventions, and spoke several times
for the Brotherhood of St. Andrews.
Transcribed
3-18-06 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: "The
©
2006 Marilyn R. Pankey.