Oscar T. Shuck

Oscar T. Shuck, the author of "Bench and Bar in California," was born in Hong Kong, China, of American parents Baptist missionaries, on New Year's Day, 1843.  The name is German, and Mr. Shuck's father was of German and Irish extraction; on his mother's side the strain is straight English.  The ancestry on both sides has been American for five or six generations.

     In his infancy, his mother dying at Hong Kong, our subject was brought to the United States by his father, and left in care of relatives in Virginia, the native State of both of his parents.  His father remarried and went back to China, but, again becoming a widower, returned to the United States in 1853, to remain permanently; but he was persuaded to resume his missionary labors among the Chinese in California.  He arrived in San Francisco in April, 1854, representing both the Northern and Southern Boards of Missions.  He settled at Sacramento with his family, including our subject, his youngest son, and labored there for seven years, as a missionary to the Chinese and pastor of the First Baptist Church at the same time.  All of the family, excepting Oscar T., then returned to the south, on the eve of the great war.

     Mr. Shuck, last named, was educated in the public schools of Sacramento, graduating from the high school in 1859, and receiving a medal for best scholarship in Greek.  Removing to San Francisco in 1861, he read law and served as clerk in various law offices, among them that of Baldwin & Haggin, until the spring of 1863, when he went to Virginia City, Nevada Territory, which was having its first period of prosperity in mineral development.  Mr. J. B. Haggin had obtained for him a clerkship with the principal law firm, that of Stewart, Baldwin & Rising.  After the lapse of a year, during which he also held the office of Notary Public, he was, upon examination, admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of Nevada.  In 1866 he returned to San Francisco, and entered the field of journalism, serving in succession on several of the leading dailies, as reporter or city editor.

     In 1867 Mr. Shuck was elected a Justice of the Justices' Court, then just established, and served a term of two years.  In 1870 he was city editor of the Daily Examiner.  In 1871 and part of '72, he was editor-in-chief at Sacramento of the Daily Reporter, which was then made by law the official State paper.  Returning again to San Francisco he continued his connection with the press in various capacities until the fall of 1875, when he ran as the Democratic candidate for Police Judge (the city having only one police judge at the time), and was defeated, as were all the Democratic nominees for judicial office who were voted for in the city at large.

     From January, 1876, for a period of five years, Mr. Shuck was, by appointment of Governor Irwin, a Notary Public in San Francisco.  This office he resigned to enter on the practice of law, in which he had engaged to some extent while a Notary Public.  For ten years past he has been following the profession of law.  During that period he has been a frequent contributor to the press, some of his poems being received with high favor.

     In 1869 Mr. Shuck published the "California Scrap Book," a compilation opening with Baker's splendid "Atlantic Cable Oration" of September, 1858.  In 1870 he published his "Representative Men of the Pacific," the sketches, with few exceptions, being from his own pen.  This contains a number of fine orations, among them Baker's masterpiece at Broderick's funeral.  In 1880 he issued the "California Anthology," another compilation; and in 1889 appeared his original work, "Bench and Bar in California," a volume of high merit, and full of history, anecdotes and reminiscences.  By this work, which is destined to have a very long life, he is chiefly known.

     Mr. Shuck has an elder brother, Rev. Lewis Hall Shuck, a Baptist minister, living at Fayette, Missouri: a sister residing with the latter, and a younger brother, a merchant in Alabama.  His own family consists of a wife and two grown daughters.  A memoir of Mr. Shuck's mother, Henrietta Hall Shuck, a woman of deep piety and a most unselfish and beautiful character, was written by Rev. Dr. J. B. Jeter, of Richmond, Virginia, and published by the Baptist Missionary Board in 1850.

                        ART'S NEW YEAR'S GIFT

   (On the discovery of the statue of Minerva by Phidias, reported by telegram from Athens, New Year's Eve., 1880.)

                        by Oscar T. Shuck

A glory of the ancient world has fired the modern heart,

And, trumpet-loud, "Eureka!" rings through all the aisles

     of art.

Girt with its pristine majesty, long hid from eyes of men,

A miracle of human skill, lo, it is born again!

The tide of twenty centuries has swept that classic land

Since first the mighty Greek unveiled this marvel of

     his hand.

Embalmed beneath the wrecks of time, in earth where

    heroes trod,

Where even Pagan sages taught some living truths of

    God!--

Defiant of the flood of years, it towers above the wave

And Art exults, as at her own revival from the grave.

A far-off era shall behold (for perish all things must)

This trophy of a golden age crumble in precious dust-

A more pathetic story then shall burst from mortal lips

Than that which thro' vanished years told of its first

     eclipse.

Oh! touch it light, remorseless Time, ner hurl it to the

     sod,

Till men shall learn the Master's stroke, and follow

     where he trod.

 

Transcribed 9-15-04  Marilyn R. Pankey