A compelling series of insightful biographical sketches of the men and women of the York County Bar commencing eleven years before the start of the Civil War as recounted by contemporaries and colleagues. Candid, sincere, honest, and on occasion with a touch of comic relief, these memorial minutes are tributes to those who have made their rendezvous with mortality. Found within these volumes is the venerable Jeremiah S. Black who walked the corridors of national recognition during the Civil War era; the urbane and brilliant Herbert B. Cohen who wielded substantial political power throughout the commonwealth and rose to become an associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court; and the charismatic Harvey Gross whose superb advocacy in the third Hex trial and subsequent twenty-year tenure on the York County Orphans' Court placed him in the forefront of the princes of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence. This "callout" of the giants in no way diminishes the significance, commitment, and integrity of the many other remarkable individuals who came after and counseled and inspired others to live honestly, to exercise compassion, and to act with prudence and diligence, and above all else made their contribution to the vast and diverse panorama of our humanity. Not a typical memoir or story, these memorial minutes constitute the defining epic of the York County Bar. More than history, more than recitals of character and personality, and more than delightful encounters and more somber content, they are about individuals remembered for the richness and power of their hopes, achievements, and commitments to the timeless values of the life of the law.
About the Author: Compiled and forward by J. ROSS MCGINNIS. J. Ross McGinnis, attorney and author of "Trials of Hex," was born in 1928 and was raised on a farm in southern York County. After graduating from Fawn Township Vocational High School in 1944, he attended York Collegiate Institute/York Junior College for one year. He then went to Princeton University, graduating in 1949 summa cum laude, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and awarded the Lawrence Hutton Prize in History, and was the co-recipient of the C.O. Jolene Prize in American Political History for his thesis on Henry Adams, the Sequence of the Democratic Force. He graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1952 and was given a direct commission in the U.S. Air Force. He became a staff judge advocate and, after two years, was discharged with the rank of Captain. Since 1954, he has been a practicing attorney in York County. He was President of the York County Bar, Moderator of Donegal Presbytery, and a life member of the Salvation Army. He is currently "of counsel" for the law firm of Stock and Leader in York, Pennsylvania.