Submitted by: Georgia Gill-Elkins

 

Egbert, Corwin

St. Joseph Valley Register, Nov. 19, 1870 p. 3

 

Hon. Elisha Egbert
     It is our painful duty in this week's issue of the Register to notice the death of one of our oldest and most esteemed citizens, Hon. Elisha Egbert.
Judge of the court of common Pleas for the 17 District. He had been ill for several days previous but it was not supposed serious. About 11 o'clock on Friday night last he complained of severe neuralgia pains and about 12 suddenly expired. The neuralgia had attacked the heart and the result was instantly fatel. In this death South bend has lost a citizen of whom she was proud indeed and the State one of its ablest and most esteemed man.
     Judge Egbert was born in New Jersey in 1806. at an early day his father moved to Lebanon, Ohio, where his boyhood days were spent. He studied law with Hon. Thos. Corwin, then a rising young lawyer. He removed to South Bend in 1839, when he was 23 years of age, and engaged on his first arrival in teaching school. As the oldest teacher in the county he is recollected by some of our citizens of middle age. Hon. T. S. Stanfield, then 14 years of age, was one of his first pupils. Judge Egbert was present at the organization of the first Court in Elkhart, LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties, and at the time of his decease was the last of the first member of the bar of Northern Indiana. He was said to be the first admitted to practice in the courts north of the Wabash River and was plaintiff in the third suit on the records of St. Joseph County. In 1834 he was appointed Probate Judge. With the exception of one term, which time he spent in farming, he continued to hold that position until the office was abolished in 1852, when he was elected Common Pleas Judge which position he held for 18 years up to the time of his decease.

Note per John McCartney (Great Grand Nephew):

[Elisha Egbert, his wives Eliza (McCartney) Egbert and Mary Elizabeth (Davis) Egbert and his son Edward are buried in South Bend's City Cemetery.]