Bio-Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: COFFINBERRY,CULVER, CASTRO, ZEIGLER,
Philip
G. Galpin was born in Buffalo, New York, February 3, 1830. His parents, natives of Vermont, settled in
New York at an early date. When five
years of age he was adopted by his uncle, Philip S. Galpin, for many years
Mayor of New Haven, Connecticut. He was
educated in New Haven, attending Russell’s Military Academy, and in 1845
entered Yale College, at which he graduated in 1849. He then studied law with Henry B. Harrison, lately Governor of
Connecticut, and entered the Yale Law School, graduating in 1852, and was
admitted to the Bar in New Haven in the same year. He removed to Ohio and settled in Findlay in 1853, to engage in
the law business. There he entered into
partnership with Hon. James M. Coffinberry, his brother-in-law, who was
afterward for ten years Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga
County. He traveled the neighboring
counties on horseback, carrying his law-books in his saddle-bags. His first case was tried in a little town
called Ottokee, on the border of Michigan.
The court-room was in a log house about fifty feet square. Morrison R. Waite, late Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States, was also there at the time, trying several
cases. The witnesses, judges, and
lawyers all had to take quarters together in the garret of the only hotel in
the place. Mr. Galpin then practiced
law in Toledo a year, and wrote for the Toledo Blade; thence he went to New York city, entered into partnership
with Robert G. Pike, and practiced in Wall Street. This partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Pike removed to
Connecticut and became President of the Hartford & Middletown Railroad, but
Mr. Galpin continued practice in New York for a number of years.
In 1857 he came to California on business
for a client in the East, a widow, whose husband had died here leaving a large
property. The leading cases were Gray
vs. Palmer, reported in ninth volume of California Reports, and Gray vs.
Bugnardello, in Supreme Court of United States. He was attorney for Mrs. Gray and won sixteen lawsuits for her,
in which she recovered a large amount of property. He returned to New York and argued in the Supreme Court of the
United States, Galpin vs. Page, which became a leading authority on
“jurisdiction.” He came again to
California in 1860 and tried several actions for an Eastern client in
ejectment, remaining here at that time about eighteen months. During this time his business was going on
in New York, where he had partners. In
1865 he was employed in New York by the heirs of J. Ladson Hall, of
Philadelphia, to come to California to recover the estate of their father,
valued at $150,000. Hall vs. Dexter was
the leading case. He tried and argued
it in the United States Circuit Court of California, where judgment was
rendered against Hall. Mr. Galpin
appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington, D.
C., and there argued it for the Hall heirs.
The decision of the Circuit Court was reversed. The last decision established the point that
the deed of a lunatic was void and not voidable. The late Roscoe Conkling was the opposing counsel.
Mr. Galpin then remained a year and a half in New York and soon after went to Europe. He was married in Paris, France, in January, 1867, to Mary E. Culver, a native of Baltimore, Maryland. In 1869 he returned from Europe to New York city, where he practiced law till 1875. Having acquired property in California which required attention, he came here that year and located in San Francisco, where he resided till 1880, when he bought a place at Claremont near Oakland. His wife died there in 1883. He continued to reside at his home in Claremont till 1886, when he married Julia B., youngest daughter of Victor Castro, by whom he has one child.
In 1887 Mr. Galpin sold his property at Claremont and bought a place between Los Gatos and Alma, at Lexington, Santa Clara County. He has a fine ranch of 250 acres, on which he carries on stock-raising, grain and fruit culture. It is his intention to plant the whole place to fruit. He practices law in San Francisco in partnership with John T. Doyle, of Menlo Park, and W. G. Zeigler, his nephew, under the firm name of Doyle, Galpin & Zeigler, their office being at the southeast corner of Sacramento and Montgomery Streets.
His
only criminal case was the defense, in conjunction with H. E. Highton, Esq., of
the son of Mayor Kalloch, indicted for murdering Charles De Young, a former
editor of the Chronicle. In the contest in 1886 between the
Republican and Democratic parties for representation in the Board of Elections,
Mr. Galpin rendered efficient service to the Democratic party. He argued at Washington before the Land
Department and before the Supreme Court of the State, on behalf of the State,
the question of the State’s ownership of land below high-water mark, within the
limits of a pueblo. For years he has
been and now is counsel for the property-holders, in the various actions
brought, to collect the Montgomery Avenue Bonds. He is also at present counsel for the Western Union Telegraph
Company.
Pen Pictures From The
Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California, Illustrated. - Edited by H. S. Foote.- Chicago: The Lewis
Publishing Company, 1888.
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