John Welch was born on a farm in Harrison County, Ohio, the son of Thomas and Martha (Daugherty) Welch. His father was of English and his mother of Irish parentage. They were among the early pioneers of Ohio, settling first in Harrison County and moving about 1828 to Athens County.
Education
At the age of eighteen, having spent his life until then on the farm, John secured "his time" from his father, and by alternately teaching school to obtain funds and attending classes at Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio, he was able to graduate from that institution in 1828. Traveling some fourteen miles each week to recite, he studied law with Joseph Dana of Athens, but soon broke down physically and for a time ran a sawmill owned by his father. In after years he was fond of telling his grandchildren that he would set the saw and then read Blackstone while it was going through the log.
Career
In 1833 he was admitted to the bar of Ohio and located for practice at Athens. Professionally successful from the start, he made a place for himself among such eminent lawyers as Thomas Ewing, Samuel F. Vinton, and Henry Stanbery. After having served from 1841 to 1843 as prosecuting attorney of Athens County, he was elected in 1843 to the Ohio Senate, remaining there for one term of two years. In 1850 he was sent, as a Whig, to the lower house of Congress, where, also, he served but one term, and in 1852 he was a delegate to the national Whig convention that nominated Gen. Winfield Scott for president. From 1862 to 1865 he was a common-pleas judge and while serving as such was appointed by the governor, Feburary 23, 1865, to fill the vacancy on the Ohio supreme court created by the resignation of Judge Rufus P. Ranney. In October 1865 he was elected to fill the unexpired term and in October 1867 was elected for a full term. After serving for thirteen years, he returned in 1878 to Athens and resumed the practice of law. In 1887 he published An Index-Digest to the Reports of Cases Decided in the Courts of Ohio and later prepared a supplement, which was published after his death. He also wrote a small volume entitled Mathematical Curiosities (1883) consisting of new and original rules, puzzles, and an interest table on an entirely new plan - and a number of essays. His opinions as judge were characterized by their brevity, few being over two or three pages long, and by the almost total absence of any cited cases. They are, however, forcibly stated and clearly reasoned. The positive character of the man is illustrated by the fact that it was his habit, when the court was in consultation, to state his opinion briefly after listening to the other judges, and if they disagreed with him to devote himself to his favorite pastime of solving some mathematical problem while they argued. When the vote was taken his position was already known, for he seldom changed a conclusion he had formed. His mathematical turn of mind made him a particularly valuable member of the court, since much of its time during his presence on the bench was given to the solution of problems of real property, which have in them much that requires the precision of mathematics. Some of his opinions in this field are considered classics, among them that given in the case of McIntire Administrators et al. vs. the City of Zanesville, wherein he applies the equitable doctrine of "cy-près, " holding that where a fund is given by will to the use and support of a "poor school" for the benefit of the poor children of a city in which later a public school system is established, this fund may be used "to buy books and shoes and in rare cases even food" for the poor children attending the public schools. He died in Athens in his eighty-sixth year.
Achievements
Connections
In 1830 he married Martha, daughter of Capt. James Starr; two sons and two daughters were born to this union.