Person:Melchert Stannard (1)

Melchert was born in Springville, Lawrence County, Indiana on 30 June 1856. He was a prominent attorney (see more information below) who married the daughter of his law partner. Melchert built the family home at 304 East Market Street in Jeffersonville. Melchert was a charter member of the Indiana State Bar Association which was organized in 1896 according to a newspaper article, a copy of which I have in my possession. There is a great deal more information available about our ancestor Melchert Z. Stannard including more about his youth and education. Again quoting Men of Progress of Indiana, Melchert was born and raised on the farm where he mother still resides. “Left fatherless at the age of six, and his mother having a large family and but a small estate he secured his education entirely through his own efforts. When sixteen years of age he began teaching school, thus earning during the winter months sufficient means with which to attend school during the remainder of the year, and in this way acquired a liberal education. At the age of twenty he began the study of law with Messrs. Howard & Read, a strong and well-established law firm of Jeffersonville. While pursuing his studies he attended Law school at the University of Louisville, from which he graduated in the year 1879. After completing his legal education, he entered upon the practice of his profession at Jeffersonville, where he has since enjoyed a lucrative and desirable practice. In March, 1879, he was admitted as a member of the firm with which he has read law, the firm being thereafter known as Howard, Read & Stannard, until the year 1888, when it was dissolved.”

The article goes on to describe his successful practice, naming some of his larger clients and describing some of the more prominent trials he has been associated with and states: “In his practice before the Supreme court Mr. Stannard has been very successful, having gained more than eighty per cent of his cases in that tribunal.” Another quote from the same article: “Being an ardent Democrat, he has, since becoming a voter, taken an active interest in politics, although with one exception he has never become a candidate for office. In 1898 he was nominated on the state ticket for supreme judge. Although his party was unsuccessful, the result of the election was gratifying to him, in that he ran ahead of the state and local ticket in his own county and carried his judicial district by from three thousand to four thousand majority.” Here, courtesy of the internet, from the pages of the newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiana is a scan of the ballot for this election for Judge of the Indiana Supreme Court, Second District

Melchert Stannard also traveled extensively in his own country and Europe, according to the same article. His passport was issued in 1895 in the name of Melchert Zearing Stannard. I researched the name Zearing and it came from his mother’s sister Lucinda’s husband, James Robert Zearing who came from another distinguished family. Melchert made an ocean crossing from Liverpool when he was 39 on the ship Campania, arriving in New York in 23 August 1895. From letters home in July to his wife and his father-in-law, we know that the crossing took 7 days, 12 hours, that he stayed in London and then in Carlsbad where he took treatments at the spa there while his wife and daughter enjoyed a trip to MarbleHead. He hoped to visit Switzerland and Paris in August before sailing home on the aforementioned ship Campania.