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As qualifications for the distinction of being elected president of the Ohio State Bar Association for the years
1923-24, William Lincoln Hart has a record of long and successful practice
at Alliance, and a success not only as an able lawyer but of a broad minded
and public spirited citizen.
Mr. Hart was born at Inverness in Columbiana County, Ohio, February
6, 1867, son of Benjamin F. and Ariel S. (Dreghorn) Hart. His maternal grandfather, John Dreghorn, was born in Scotland was a pioneer in the
typically Scotch village of Inverness in Columbiana county. The Hart family
has been been in America since early Colonial times. His great-grandfather,
Silas Hart, was a soldier in the War of the Revolution, while his grandfather, John S. Hart, served in the War of 1812. John S. Hart became
the father of eight sons and nine daughters, seven of the sons, becoming
soldiers in the Union army during the Civil war, most of them in the three
years' service. All of them returned home. Benjamin F. Hart was born in Columbiana County in 1843, was a soldier in the Twenty-sixth Ohio Veteran
Volunteer Battery, and spent his mature career as a farmer in the home locality.
William Lincoln Hart was the first in a large family of children
and spent his boyhood days on a farm in Columbiana County. He attended local schools, and at the age of eighteen began teaching in his home
district. He taught for seven years and at the same time paid his expenses
as a student in Mount Union College at Alliance, where he graduated with
the Bachelor of Arts degree. In 1893 he became city editor of the Alliance
Daily Critic, later known as the Alliance Daily Leader, but in 1895, entered the law Department of the University of Michigan, where he was
graduated Bachelor of Laws with the class of 1897. He was president of the
senior class of 1897. He was president of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity,
and also the Wranglers Club. He was admitted to the bar June 10, 1897, standing third in a class of ninety applicants. On October 1, 1897, he
opened a law office at Alliance, and in March, 1898, became a partner of
Dennis E. Rogers, with whom he practiced until the death of Mr. Rogers in
January, 1903. Since February, 1903, he has been associated in practice with Hugo C. Koehler in the firm of Hart & Koehler. This is a partnership
of more than twenty years standing, and is a firm that has handled cases of
great magnitude. The firm specializes in railroad and corporation law. Mr.
Hart was admitted to practice in the Federal courts of the Northern District of Ohio March 23, 1903.
Mr Hart is a trustee of Mount Union College, and is lecturer on
international law in that institution. He has prepared a number of articles
for law magazines, and is a member of the American Society of International
Law, the Stark County, State and American Bar associations. During the war
he was a member of the legal advisory board of Stark County. Mr. Hart is a member of Conrad Lodge of Masons, Alliance Commanders
No. 67, Knights Templar Lake Erie Consistory of the Scottish Rite and Al
Koran Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Cleveland, and is also affiliated with
the Lone Rock Lodge No. 23, Knights of Pythias. He belongs to the Rotary
Club and the Country Club of Alliance, the Chamber of Commerce, the Congress Lake Country Club of Alliance, and is a member of the Ohio Society
of Mayflower descendants. He is a member of the Stark County Republican Executive Committee and he and his wife are members of the First Methodist
Episcopal Church.
He married September 16, 1897, Miss Ida B. Caskey, daughter of
Nathan and Bertha Caskey. They have two children, Ian Bruce, born December
28, 1899, now a practicing lawyer at Canton, Ohio; and William Lincoln, Jr., born January 11, 1910. |
