Digital Bob Archive

John Howell Cobb was a feisty Juneau lawyer - obnoxiously feisty at times, according to some sources - who became Alaska's first Attorney General. He was born in Mississippi in 1861 and both his great-grandfather and his grandfather had served in the U.S. Congress and the grandfather had been Speaker of the House, Secretary of the Treasury and Governor of Georgia. His father had been killed while serving in the Confederate Army.

After the war the Cobbs moved to Texas and John Cobb came to Juneau in 1897 from Wichita Falls, Texas. He was perhaps attracted by news of the riches of the Klondike; Texas was not at that time the affluent state it later became. He opened a law office in Juneau and in 1899 entered into a partnership with John F. Malony, one of Alaska's pioneer lawyers.

Cobb not only had a propensity for getting into trouble himself but his trouble rubbed off on others. No doubt unintentionally, he was at least partly responsible for two Alaska judges leaving the federal bench. The decision of Judge Wickersham not to disbar Cobb, related last week, brought the wrath of Governor Hoggatt and his cohort, Lewis Shackleford, down on Wickersham, greatly weakening his chances for Senate confirmation. Wickersham gave up that fight and resigned.

A second attempt to disbar Cobb, in connection with other actions of his, was made in 1908 and this one was heard before Judge Royal Gunnison. On September 9, 1908, Gunnison exonerated Cobb, finding that there were insufficient grounds for disbarment, but he did lecture him severely. The failure to disbar Cobb infuriated Shackleford, who had just been named Republican National Committeeman for Alaska.

Two days after he had been chastised by Gunnison, Cobb published an article in the Alaska Daily Dispatch in which he attacked Gunnison's integrity. Gunnison suspended him from the practice of law for two years, but that did not mollify Shackleford who vowed to block Gunnison's reappointment.

Cobb appealed the suspension to the Circuit Court, then went off to Valdez which he claimed was outside of Gunnison's jurisdiction. In December, just before the Circuit Court announced a decision, Cobb appeared before Gunnison and offered to apologize but was told it was too late. Two weeks later Gunnison was sustained and the suspension was made to apply to all of Alaska.

President William Howard Taft took office March, 1909, and Shackleford was in Washington with the announced purpose of blocking reappointment of Gunnison and, if possible, securing the judgeship for his law partner, Thomas Lyons. With court in session at Juneau, Gunnison could not get to Washington to plead his own case. It was reported that he arrived one day too late, that Taft had made his decision the previous day. Thomas Lyons was sworn in on June 1, 1909, as District Judge at Juneau, and that began what Editor Ed Russell of the Dispatch labeled \"the court house gang.\"