Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 4 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 16

In the arduous yet interesting field of court reporting, we find John W. Gearhart, who was born in Fairmount, Luzerne County. Pa.. June 1, 1852, son of Wesley R. and Sarah (Millard) Gearhart. His father, a graduate of Girard Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa., took up the practice of his profession in Winnebago, Ill., in the Rock River Valley, in 1854. Dr. and Mrs. Gearhart came to Fresno, Cal, in 1886, and there resided until the time of the death of Dr. Gearhart in 1889. Mrs. Gearhart thereafter lived in Pacific Grove until her decease, in 1906, her remains being interred with those of her husband and son Charles in the Masonic Cemetery, Fresno.

The subject of this sketch received his education in the public schools of Illinois. After acquiring some proficiency as a shorthand writer, Mr. Gearhart, in 1872, obtained a position as secretary of Allan Pinkerton (Chief of the United States Secret Service during the Civil War), in the Chicago offices of Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, later being transferred to the New York office and still later to the Philadelphia office of the agency.

In 1873 Mr. Gearhart returned to Chicago and accepted a position as stenographer in the law offices of Messrs. Aver, Beckwith & Kales. Coming to California in the winter of 1874-75 he entered the employ of Dun's Commercial Agency, and in the latter part of 1875 commenced his life work as a court reporter with the firm of Osbourne & Jones, official court reporters, San Francisco. In the fall of 1875. Mr. Gearhart was appointed official reporter of the District Court of the Third Judicial District of California by Hon. James B.' Campbell, then judge of said court, thereafter receiving appointments as official reporter of the county courts of Tulare, Fresno, Merced and Mariposa Counties, comprised in the Third Judicial District, later being appointed reporter of the Kern County Superior Court, after the adoption of the New Constitution of California, as well as of the Superior Courts of the four counties of Tulare, Fresno, Merced and Mariposa.

With the increase of population, wealth and, consequently of litigation in the San Joaquin Valley, Mr. Gearhart perforce relinquished the practice of his profession in one county after another, retaining his position of reporter of the Superior Court of Fresno County. His duties of later years as official reporter of Department No. 1, under appointments by Judges Campbell, Harris, Webb, Carter and Austin, together with the reporting of trials in the District Court of the Southern District of California, Northern Division, as Special Examiner for the United States Circuit and District Courts, and miscellaneous business in the line of his profession, have constantly kept him busy.

Among the more notable civil cases reported by Mr. Gearhart were those of Carr & Haggin vs. Miller & Lux, in the Superior Court of Kern County, involving riparian rights with reference to properties of great value, and Jeremiah Clark et al vs. Poly, Heilbron & Co., regarding title to the Rancho Laguna de Tache, comprising some 30.000 acres of land along Kings River, the litigants in these cases being represented by many of California's then leading lawyers — Hall McAllister, Judge John Garber. R. E. Houghton, Judge Flournoy, Judge Denson, Hon. P. D. Wigginton and others, the trial of each case covering a period of about three months. As these trials occurred before the introduction of the use of the phonograph or dictaphone and the reporter was required to furnish daily to counsel for plaintiffs and defendants transcripts of his notes of the testimony, the amount of labor required of one reporter and one typewriter operator may be easily understood.

Trials of criminal cases of more than ordinary interest reported by Mr. Gearhart include those of The People vs. Chris Evans, noted train robber, People vs. Heath and Polley, for the murder of Louis B. McWhirter and that of the People vs. W. A. Sanders, for forgery, the disappearance of one Wm. Wooton — believed to have been murdered and his remains disposed of — being involved, the first and second trials being presided over by Judges J. R. Webb and Carrol Cook, respectively in the Superior Court of Fresno County.

On July 17, 1882. Mr. Gearhart was married to Miss Mary E. Johnson, of Visalia. Fresno has been their home for the thirty-five years last past. In the same city now reside all of their children — Clara L. (now Mrs. Wm. J. Cleary), James W. (also a court reporter), and Bertrand W., a member of the legal profession, at present deputy district attorney of .Fresno County.