John Frederick Winkler

John Frederick Winkler (1946-2025) passed away at his home in Beavercreek, Ohio. Born in southeastern Ohio a descendant of families that had settled this land before Ohio was a state, he graduated from Wellston High School in 1964.

A graduate of Yale College, he received graduate degrees from McGill and Harvard Universities, and his JD from Ohio State University.

He was active in Iran, Afghanistan and Nepal in the 1970s.

For many years, he practiced law in Columbus as a civil litigator in the firms BakerHostetler and Shoemaker, Howarth, and Winkler. He was an Adjunct Professor of Law at Capital University Law School for many years, where he taught on federal jurisdiction and trial practice. He also served as Counsel for Appellate Rules to the Ohio Supreme Court Rules Advisory Committee.

An authority on Roman and Anglo-Saxon legal history, he was also co-editor of The History of Ohio Law, the landmark compilation prepared for the Ohio Bicentennial. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, quoted from his article “The Probate Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts,” 14 Probate Law Journal 77-152 (1997) in Marshall v. Marshall, 547 U.S. 293 (2006) (sometimes known as the “Anna Nicole Smith case”). As a historian, he was also the author of a series of six books on the military history of the Ohio frontier from 1774 to 1813 (Point Pleasant, Peckuwe, Wabash, Fallen Timbers, Tippecanoe, and The Thames) with Osprey.

He is survived by Wendy, his wife of more than fifty years, as well as three children and six grandchildren.