The following article appeared in the Tacoma News Tribune on Monday, January 17, 1927:
J.A. SHACKLEFORD DIES IN SEATTLE HOSPITALFormer Judge of Superior Court and Prominent Tacoma Attorney Passes
Judge John A. Shackleford, 10 years ago superior judge in Pierce county and a prominent attorney in Tacoma since 1890, died Monday in a Seattle hospital where he had been confined for a short time at the age of 67 years.
Judge Shackleford was at one time associated with the Tacoma Railway & Power Co. as associate counsel and as president.
A native of Kentucky, John A. Shackleford went to Indiana, locating at Indianapolis, where he practiced law as a young man for several years. About March 17, 1889, W.H. Walkins, an attorney, came to Tacoma from Indianapolis and opened an office. Soon after this Mr. Calkins was named one of the associate justices for the Washington territory branch and went to Spokane. A year or so later he returned to Tacoma and sent for Mr. Shackleford, who came to Tacoma and entered law practice with Mr. Calkins. The latter was a candidate for U.S. senator in 1889, being unsuccessful. His association with Shackleford continued, however, until the latter was anmed for the bench.
The following is the obituary of John Shackleford:
JOHN A. SHACKLEFORD--The funeral of Judge John A. Shackleford was held Thursday at 3 p.m. from the Buckley-King chapel; burial Tacoma cemetary. The pall bearers were Frank Wright of Seattle, Walter Christian, Dr. Burton Lemley, D.D. Calkins, Torger Peterson, and C.M. Kiddell, Tacoma.
The following is a Biographical Sketch of the Life of John Armstrong Shackleford written by his daughter, Elizabeth Shackleford July 16, 1984.
HONORABLE JOHN A. SHACKLEFORD
of Tacoma, Washington
Born Paris, Kentucky, May 5th, 1862
Deceased Seattle, Washington, January 17th, 1927
AN APPRECIATION
John Armstrong Shackleford was born March 5, 1862 at Paris, Kentucky, a little town on the Ohio River, where his father, the Reverend Mr. John Shackleford, was pastor of the Church of the Disciples of Christ (a denomination sometimes called the Campbellites). His mother, Elizabeth Wheatly Shackleford, came from southern Indiana. His father's family home was in Maysville, Kentucky, where the father's father, Dr. John Shackleford, was a doctor of medicine. With so many "Johns' in the family, it was natural to nickname the youngest "Jack".
Two other sons were born to this couple. They were Thomas Wheatly Shackleford, and then, some thirteen years later, another son, Lewis Pinkerton Shackleford. There were no other children in the family.
Looking thru the old papers of the family, I was fortunate to find a copy of the memorial address given by his brother Lewis of the Pierce County Bar Association. I attach a copy and will try not to duplicate its contents in my writing.
I will mention that the Shacklefords, in addition to being strong Union men, were strongly anti-slavery, though they had household slaves; all this is in a part of Kentucky where there was much sentiment the other way - sometimes the controlling sentiment.
Also, it is worth noting, that in 1870, when jack was about eight years old, his father ceased to hold a pastorate and became full-time professor in the State University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, and continued on that faculty until his final retirement in 1899, teaching English, philosophy, and sometimes Greek and Latin. So Jack spent much of his boyhood and youth in Lexington, and went to college there.
For one (and perhaps two) of the summer vacations of his college years, he worked in the mountains of Kentucky as a member of a crew of the United States Geological Survey, an experience which conditioned him to enjoy camping out in the new country out West, and also convinced him of the desirability of material progress. He loved the wild county, but was not "back to nature" advocate.
Except for a short time spent in the Tacoma City Attorney's office, and another short perid as Superior Court judge, he was engaged in the private practice of law, principally civil cases including many appeals to the State supreme Court. The Tacoma Smelter, through many changes of its name and ownership, was a life-long client. Beginning early in his career in Washington , he established a reputation for competency in the field of water rights. In 1903, he served on State Irrigation Commission, by appointment of Governor McBride. This led to association with Erskine Wood, a prominent Portland attorney, and around 1907 to 1910 a project for the development of the headwaters of the Cowlitz River for production of electric current, in which a Portland financier, L. A. Lewis, was interested. The plan was abandoned after some preliminary surveys, but the connection with Erskine Wood continued throughout Jack's life.
For a few years around 1913, he was attorney for Tacoma railway and power Company, and affiliate of Stone and Webster. The T. R and P. operated the streetcars in Tacoma.
In the latter years of his life, he represented the Carlisle Packing Company of Seattle, which packed salmon from Bristol Bay, Alaska. He was also doing quite a bit of examination of real estate abstracts of title, work all now done by title companies.
From the time he came to Washington, he was active in politics. He was always a republican, not a Bull Moose (the Teddy Roosevelt faction), but moderately conservative. For instance, he did favor the Workmen's Compensation Act. I am satisfied the thought the 18th amendment (Prohibition) a mistake. About Woman Suffrage, he was ambivalent, but when it came, he accepted it. The defeat of Hughes by Wilson was a bitter blow. It changed the whole local political picture.
And about the First World War, he was not enthusiastic. I remember his speaking at a public meeting, before war was declared, and saying that the President should not ask congress for a declaration of war, unless he could look into the coffin of each soldier kiulled and say that the man lay there as a matter of justice and necessity.
He was a member of the pierce County Bar Association and the Washington State Bar Association, both then voluntary. The adoption of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association of a minimum fee schedule he opposed vehemently, a position which it took the U. S. Supreme Court some sixty years later to catch up with.
In the matter of recreation, he was a great reader, and the members of the family often read aloud to one another, a recognized form of entertainment before the radio and television. he did not care much for music, except for familiar songs, which he liked to hearus, in the family, sing. He very much enjoyed the theatre and the old-time vaudeville. Among men, he had the reputation of being a cheerful, convivial companion.
Coming from the blue-grass of Kentucky, he was a natural horseman. For about ten years, while he had a camp at the Town of Steilacoom, he kept horses, generally a team, that could be ridden, as well as driven hitched to a spring wagon, in which the family of five could ride, on numerous trips, mostly around lakes in the prairie south of Tacoma.
he wanted to see, and he wanted his family to see, what was there to be seen around them. So there were visits to Vancouver B.C. and victoria, trips to the three World Fairs, and innumerable camping expeditions around the state.
I have come across some notes he made for a commencement speech at Cushman Indian School, a speech which I and my sisters heard him deliver. (I think this was a method on his part of giving his daughters some good advice painlessly.) In these notes I find the statement that a lawyer's work is not so much to get people out of trouble as to keep them from getting into trouble. That summarizes his approach to the practice of law as well as anything could.
REMARKS OF LEWIS P. SHACKLEFORD BEFORE THE PIERCE COUNTY BENCH UPON THE DECEASE OF JOHN A. SHACKLEFORD
Just sixty-five years ago today John A. Shackleford was born in Paris, Kentucky, in the midst of the Civil War. His father and mother were both staunch supporters of the Union and President Lincoln. When he was yet a baby in arms his father and mother were awakened after midnight by a friend with a carriage and horses and made ready to take themselves and him to the nearest Union camp for safety from the raid of General John Morgan, because his father had prayed from the pulpit for "The President of the United States". They missed Morgan's path by about an hour - some fifteen miles. So history was then, in the year of his birth, as always, in the making.
He attended the State College of Kentucky, and at twenty graduated from that college with first honors and a Bachelor of Arts degree.
For the next two years, until graduation, he attended the Cincinnati law School, in which school, at that time, our present Chief Justice, William Howard Taft, was the youngest professor. For a short period, about two years, he was in the office with Mr. John Galvin and the present Vice President of the United States, Mr. Charles G. Dawes. About 1885, he moved to Indianapolis, Indiana, where he studied and practiced law under Mr. John T. Dye, attorney for the "Big Four" Railroad, and afterwards opened an office with Oliver P. Morton Jr., during the year 1889.
His friends were, as always, many: Among them, Judge Walter Q. Graham, Oliver p. Morton Jr., Meredith Nicholson, James Whitcomb Riley and W. H. Calkins, afterwards a most prominent and beloved member of this Bar.
In 1890 he moved to Tacoma, to be with Judge Calkins, and has remained there ever since. On June 18th, 1890, he returned to Indiana, and was married to Miss Charlotte Shane, at her home in Greensburg, Indiana. I remember meeting at that wedding, as attednants, Judge bridges, of our Supreme Court, and mr. W. H. Sachse of this Bar.
Of his career and life at this bar, many of you are as familiar as I am. Mr. James B. Howe, in substance, wrote me: "When we were associated, i felt sure that nothing of value to our client would be overlooked, and when we were adversaries, that nothing underhanded would be done."
No one knew, I think, better than John A., Shackleford that the law was a progressive science, and its practice an improving art, and that it was a practice requiring the utmost self-restraint and ability to examine the opponent's point of view with as great care as that of his own client, and see that no one should over-reach to win, - for there is always the reaction at some time later. His belief was that the law was for all alike, as long as litigants were not hypocrites or bullies. I do not know of his ever starting a dispute that he was not satisfied he could finish.
With relation to his association with men, never have I heard him say a hurtful thing to or of any may. Sometimes his appraisal of an exaggerated ego would be quaint and humorous, but most of these he kept to himself and his own special enjoyment.
His sense of companionship was so genuine that time and time again I have been with him and never felt our close kinship; it was entirely submerged in his camaraderie.
No man in this State had more friends amongst all kinds and conditions of men, from the laborer, or the unoccupied poor, to the banker or capitalist, from black to white, than the Judge. He was a father and brother to all who came in contact with him.
So, on January 17th, 1927, he left an honorable career and family, most devoted and capable: His widow, Charlotte Shane Shackleford, and three daughters, Charlotte, Martha and Elizabeth, the latter a member of this Bar. He left a host of lonesome friends, and not a hurt or scar on any heart or memory.
In business life he was so generous and unselfish, and so busy in that respect, that his profession failed to be so much a business success as a professional one. Nevertheless, when legal and business conditions, through fierce competition and envy, became complicated and sometimes dangerous, he was often sent for. he could walk quietly through a mob without fear and I think without danger. he never lost his self-possession through any feeling about his own status or interests. Sometimes he would lose his calmness when an injustice was imminent to some defenseless person.
He was most fond of literature: Riley, Mark Twain and many others. But as a key-note of his love of those around him, I can say that Addison's Sir Roger DeCoverly" was his favorite book. He had great wit and a kind, quaint humor, but he usually occupied himself in creating situations giving his company an opening to make the joke and enjoy having made it, so much he loved to see others have the enjoyment.
I have a sincere belief that he was much greater than his considerable prominence, but this short sketch is for you to read, between the lines, for yourselves, as you knew him.
Universal human instincts and hope tell us that "Over There" he has been welcomed, but we look forward, and he waits to welcome us as and when we come, from time to time.
Tacoma Wash., March 5th, 1927.