The Court, Bench, And Bar Of Delaware County.

Joseph R. Morris was a promising member of the bar, and although but thirty-five years of age, had acquired an excellent practice. On Sunday, Dec. 4, 1859, while talking to a friend in Media, he dropped dead.

Ezra Levis was thirty years in full practice at the bar of Delaware County when he died, Jan. 23, 1879. During his career be never sought office, but in the line of his profession was earnest, conscientious, and well read. He was an abolitionist from conviction, when to entertain those sentiments was certainly destructive of all political aspirations; but Ezra Levis gave expression to his opinion then as at all times during his life when he believed he was in the right.

John Hibberd was born near where Media now stands, in Delaware County, Pa., May 31, 1821. He is the only son of Thomas and Margaret Hibberd, whose only daughter, Hannah, died in Chester, Oct. 19, 1870. His ancestors were members of the society of Friends, and his earlier ancestry was Saxon, Norman, and Welsh. His mother, born in 1790, the daughter of John and Amelia Powell, was a woman of remarkable qualities. His paternal grandfather, Jacob Hibberd, died in 1827. Mr. Hibberd was mathematically educated, his last instructor having been the late Enoch Lewis, a well-known scholar and scientist, then residing in Chester County, Pa. After leaving school, he was engaged for some time in teaching, and in April, 1845, removed with his parents to Belmont County, Ohio, where he devoted himself assiduously to the study of the law, and in October, 1847, was admitted to practice at the bar of Belmont County. His most interesting and notable case there was one in which a bill in equity had been filed, praying for a perpetual injunction against process on a judgment. It was a case of long standing, resolutely contested; the greatest vigilance was employed in the securing of testimony, with strong efforts to impeach and sustain witnesses. The ability and patience with which the numerous facts were brought out excited much comment, and the case afforded an excellent opportunity for the exercise of the power of logical argument.

He formed the acquaintance of literary, scientific, and distinguished professional men, and from 1848 to near the end of 1852 took an active and prominent part in the political contests of his adopted State. As he became a champion of the free-soil and anti-slavery movement when the cause was unpopular in that part of the State and there were few to defend its principles, much labor devolved upon him in those early conflicts. He was a member of the Republican party from its organization, and has ever taken a decided interest in the leading political questions of the times. He was a firm supporter of President Lincoln, and in a speech delivered in Philadelphia, in October, 1864, pronounced a "glowing eulogium" on the character of that eminent man and wise ruler. While a citizen of Ohio, in 1849, he began to lecture on temperance, and he has since been identified with that cause; many years ago he occasionally lectured on the subject of education. After the decease of his parents, he located permanently in his native county, and since the beginning of 1857 has been engaged in desirable legal business in Chester, and has continued to reside in that growing city, or in its vicinity. He was elected district attorney of Delaware County by a large majority in the fall of 1860, and, during his term of three years, exercised the functions of that office with marked ability and acceptance. Having declined a re-election in 1863, he has since, in addition to his professional duties, devoted much time to a fuller investigation of equity, constitutional and international law, as well as other branches of jurisprudence. He has ever recommended an honorable course in the profession, and condemned the practice of defeating the ends of justice by vexatious litigation; he has continued to cultivate the languages which contribute to successful legal research and confer a more extended general culture, continuing also a diligent student of the English classics, history, biography, oratory, and political economy.