Our eighth Prosecutor, John J. Manor, was born in Providence Township, near Grand Rapids, Ohio
in 1827, even before Lucas County came into existence. Elected Lucas County Prosecutor in 1851,
he served for six years, until 1857.
Considered one of the ablest criminal lawyers of his day, Manor was the author of an important
treatise on criminal law in Ohio. His 1857 publication dealt with the statutes, indictments,
evidence and forms involved in all criminal proceedings of the day. U.S. Chief Justice Morrison
Waite, of Toledo, called his criminal law text "the ablest work of the kind". [The Toledo
Journal, May 7, 1949].
In 1861, Manor was elected Mayor of Toledo. As a Democrat, he survived a Republican landslide
in that election. When he was defeated for re-election in 1863, he opened a pawn shop. His
literary talents did not lay fallow very long. In 1870, he joined P.H. Bateson as co-publisher
of a weekly newspaper, The Toledo Journal, into which he threw his energy until ill health
ensued from a Civil War injury he had sustained. In 1886, he moved to Kansas City to be near
his on. He died there in 1888 and was returned to Toledo for burial.