Samuel Blane’s retirement ends family’s law dynasty

The retirement in November of Petersburg attorney Samuel Shepherd Blane ended a three-generation history of law practice by family members in Menard County that dates back to the end of the Civil War.

Admitted to the Illinois bar in 1949 after graduating from the University of Illinois College of Law, Blane was registered to practice during 2009 but closed his office on Nov. 20.

The story begins with Samuel Harrison Blane, whose family emigrated from Ireland and settled in “Irish Grove” near Greenview in Menard County about 1830.

Born Jan. 17, 1840, Samuel attended schools that included the North Sangamon Academy, and he had undertaken the study of law when the Civil War started. He enlisted in August 1862 as a private in Company A of the new 106th Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

Samuel was promoted to second lieutenant in Company K in June 1863, and to first lieutenant in March 1864. He became the fourth captain of the company in May 1865.

Company K served in Kentucky and Tennessee without being involved in battles, then moved west of the Mississippi River. The members mustered out on July 12, 1865, in Pine Bluff, Ark., and were paid and discharged subsequently at Camp Butler near Springfield.

Resuming his law studies, Samuel H. Blane practiced when opportunities arose prior to his admission to the Illinois bar on Jan. 9, 1874 – three years before the Illinois State Bar Association was established.

Elected Menard County state’s attorney in 1884, he prosecuted a murderer who became the only criminal executed in county history.

A son, Frank E. Blane, joined the family law firm in 1988 and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1891. Frank also was a county judge for four years.

The patriarch, Samuel H. Blane died June 17, 1904, and was memorialized by the bar association and county officials as a public-spirited citizen of nobility and devotion.

His pastor noted that “his tolerance toward all opinions and shades of honest belief transcended all bounds of creed and won for him the confidence and love of people of widely divergent standards of thought.”

Frank Blane practiced until his death in 1941, the year before Samuel S. Blane graduated from Knox College and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps.

Discharged as a major after service in the Pacific, Samuel enrolled in the College of Law and graduated in January 1949. He was honored in 1999 as an ISBA Senior Counsellor.

His Petersburg law practice was just two months short of 60 years. It included a term as county judge from 1950 to 1954, just as his father had served a half-century earlier.