A great lawyer, but his influence is probably only moderate in the realms beyond the skies, and it would not be the soundest policy for the best of persons to take too many chances on the Almighty's forbearance by riding over the Henness Pass in a mud wagon with that same lawyer. William M. Stewart wins nearly every lawsuit he undertakes; but it is no sign he is popular in Paradise.
- "Dr. Bellows Safe," San Francisco Daily Morning Call, July 31, 1864

He was endowed by nature with a faculty of imposing the sublimest absurdities upon juries as pure and spotless truth.
- unsigned news article, Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, April 5, 1863 (quoted in Comstock Mining and Miners by Eliot Lord, 1883)