Axtell, Samuel Beach (14 October 1819–06 August 1891), politician, lawyer, and jurist, was born near Columbus, Ohio, the son of Samuel Loree Axtell and Nancy Sanders, farmers. Axtell graduated from Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio, and, after studying law, was admitted to the bar. He married Adaline S. Williams in 1840, and in 1843 they moved to Mount Clemens, Michigan, where Axtell established a law practice. The couple had at least one child. In 1851 Axtell migrated to California, where he invested in the booming mining industry and practiced law. Politically active as a Democrat, he helped organize Amador County east of Sacramento in 1854 and was elected as the new county’s first district attorney, a post to which he was reelected in 1856 and 1858....
Article
Axtell, Samuel Beach (1819-1891), politician, lawyer, and jurist
Carole B. Larson
Article
Ball, George (1909-1994), lawyer and statesman
Mark C. Carnes
Ball, George (21 December 1909–26 May 1994), lawyer and statesman, was born George Wildman Ball in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Amos Ball, Jr., a businessman, and Jessie Edna Wildman, a schoolteacher. Amos Ball, who was largely self-educated and worked his way up the ranks to become a director of Standard Oil, encouraged nightly debates at the dinner table and weekly outings to the public library. In 1922 he moved the family to Evanston, Illinois. In 1926 George enrolled at nearby Northwestern University, where he came under the influence of ...
Article
Bartlett, Ichabod (1786-1853), lawyer and politician
Donald B. Cole
Bartlett, Ichabod (24 July 1786–19 October 1853), lawyer and politician, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, the son of Joseph Bartlett, a doctor, and Hannah Colcord. Following the death of his father in 1800, Bartlett studied at Salisbury Academy, taught school, and then enrolled in Dartmouth College. After graduating in 1808, he studied law in Salisbury until 1811, when he opened a law practice in Durham, New Hampshire. He soon became a member of the Rockingham County bar, noted for such eminent lawyers as ...
Article
Bartlett, Joseph (1762-1827), lawyer, politician, and writer
William Pencak
Bartlett, Joseph (10 June 1762–20 October 1827), lawyer, politician, and writer, was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the son of Sylvanus Bartlett and Martha Wait, whose occupations are unknown. A brilliant graduate of Harvard, class of 1782, he was one of three original members of the college’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter. After graduation he briefly studied law and taught school in Salem before moving to London in 1783. From then until 1786 Bartlett’s life in the British Isles was turbulent. He quickly became famous in society by shouting out from the audience at an anti-American play written by British general ...
Article
Bayard, James Asheton (1767-1815), attorney and politician
James M. Banner Jr.
Bayard, James Asheton (28 July 1767–06 August 1815), attorney and politician, was born probably in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of James Asheton Bayard, a physician, and Agnes Hodge. Following his father’s and mother’s deaths in 1770 and 1774 respectively, Bayard became the ward of his uncle ...
Article
Berle, Adolf Augustus (1895-1971), lawyer and statesman
Jordan A. Schwarz
Berle, Adolf Augustus (29 January 1895–17 February 1971), lawyer and statesman, was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, the son of Adolf Augustus Berle, a Congregational minister, and Mary Augusta Wright. His parents began his schooling at home, and he and his three siblings won acclaim as child prodigies. Berle graduated from Harvard College at age eighteen and Harvard Law School at age twenty-one. His parents were active in the Social Gospel wing of progressive reform, providing him with beneficial political acquaintances. His first legal position was with the firm of reform lawyer and Supreme Court justice ...
Article
Berrien, John Macpherson (1781-1856), politician and lawyer
M. Philip Lucas
Berrien, John Macpherson (23 August 1781–01 January 1856), politician and lawyer, was born in Rocky Hill, New Jersey, the son of John Berrien, a soldier, politician, and planter, and Margaret Macpherson. In 1783 the family moved to eastern Georgia, where Berrien’s father started a plantation and pursued political office. He sent his five-year-old son to New York and later to New Jersey for his education, which culminated in graduation from Princeton in 1796 with a bachelor’s degree....
Article
Bingham, John Armor (21 January 1815–15 March 1900), lawyer and politician
Richard L. Aynes
Bingham, John Armor (21 January 1815–15 March 1900), lawyer and politician, was born in Mercer, Pennsylvania, the son of Hugh Bingham, a carpenter, and Ester Bailey. His father was active in local politics, holding several offices including clerk of courts. After his mother’s death in 1827, John went to Cadiz, Ohio, to live with his uncle Thomas Bingham. He returned to Mercer in 1831 and served two years as an apprentice to an anti-Masonic newspaper. He was a full-time student at Mercer Academy from 1834 to 1835 and enrolled in the antislavery Franklin College in New Athens, Ohio, in 1835. Though some sources suggest that an unspecified illness prevented Bingham from completing his course of study, he appears to have only missed the graduation ceremony. He moved back to Mercer in 1837 and studied law under two prominent local attorneys, John J. Pearson and William Stewart. Bingham was admitted to the practice of law in Pennsylvania and Ohio in 1840. He returned to Cadiz that same year campaigning on behalf of ...
Image
Bingham, John Armor (21 January 1815–15 March 1900)
In
Article
Black, Frank Swett (1853-1913), lawyer and politician
Robert F. Wesser
Black, Frank Swett (08 March 1853–22 March 1913), lawyer and politician, was born in Limington, York County, Maine, the son of Jacob Black and Charlotte Swett, farmers. When Black was eleven years old, his family moved to Alfred, Maine, where he attended what later became the Limerick Academy. While still a youth he taught school to earn enough money to pursue his education at the Lebanon Academy in preparation for study at Dartmouth College. In 1875 he graduated from Dartmouth with honors and in his senior year married Lois B. Hamlin; they had one child....
Article
Blatchford, Richard Milford (1798-1875), banking and trust lawyer and politician
Craig Hanyan
Blatchford, Richard Milford (23 April 1798–04 September 1875), banking and trust lawyer and politician, was born in Stratford, Connecticut, the son of Samuel Blatchford and Alicia Windeatt, a couple who had come from England in the summer of 1795. His father, a Presbyterian minister, subsequently was in charge of the Lansingburgh Academy and a church at Waterford, New York, and became the first president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1824, officiating there until his death in 1828. The ninth of seventeen children, Richard received a bachelor’s degree from Union College in 1815 and then moved to New York City, where a brother, also a Union graduate, had won appointment as resident physician of the Greenwich Prison. While studying law, Blatchford served briefly as a fireman in 1817, and taught school in Jamaica, Long Island. In 1819 he married Julia Ann Mumford, daughter of John P. Mumford of New York City, a merchant who had increasingly concentrated on the development of insurance companies. Julia Blatchford died in 1857. Four of their five children survived to adulthood, and their one son, ...
Article
Bloomfield, Joseph (1753-1823), lawyer, soldier, and politician
Hermann K. Platt
Bloomfield, Joseph (18 October 1753–08 October 1823), lawyer, soldier, and politician, was born in Woodbridge, New Jersey, the son of Moses Bloomfield, a physician, and Sarah Ogden. The family was one of the most prominent in colonial New Jersey. His father had received a first-rate medical education in Edinburgh, Scotland, and had a thriving practice in Middlesex County by the time Joseph was born. Joseph’s mother was a member of a wealthy and influential family of Elizabethtown, which further assured Joseph’s upper-class pedigree. His education and choice of occupation were in line with his social standing. While in his early teens, he attended the Reverend Enoch Green’s classical academy in Deerfield, Cumberland County, at the opposite end of the province from Woodbridge. Upon graduation, Bloomfield returned to East Jersey, determined to be a lawyer. He entered the profession at the top, studying in Perth Amboy with Cortlandt Skinner, attorney general of New Jersey, and was admitted to the bar in November 1774. Setting up practice in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, he soon became known and respected in all of New Jersey’s southern counties. The future seemed secure, had not the American Revolution intervened....
Article
Bocock, Thomas S. (1815-1891), lawyer and politician
Alan L. Golden
Bocock, Thomas S. (18 May 1815–05 August 1891), lawyer and politician, was born in Buckingham County (now Appomattox County), Virginia, the son of John Thomas Bocock, a clerk of court and Virginia state legislator, and Mary Flood. After receiving private tutoring in Buckingham County, Bocock entered Hampden-Sydney College in 1837. He graduated with a B.A. in 1838, then spent several months reading law in Buckingham County with his brother Willis P. Bocock (later attorney general of Va.). Following admission to the bar in 1840, he began a private practice in Buckingham County. From 1842 to 1844 Bocock represented the county in the Virginia House of Delegates. Following the formation of Appomattox County in 1845, Bocock was appointed as the county’s first prosecuting attorney, a position he held until 1846. In 1846 he married Sarah Patrick Flood; they had one child. Also in 1846 Bocock was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in the Thirtieth Congress and served seven consecutive terms (1847–1861). Known for neither radical views on sectional issues nor for leadership in the key congressional debates of the 1850s, Bocock favored compromise in 1850 but also defended the right of secession. He later favored the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the Lecompton Constitution. Bocock served as chair of the Committee on Naval Affairs and was a Democratic candidate for Speaker of the House in the dramatic and pivotal election of 1859–1860....
Article
Bonaparte, Charles Joseph (1851-1921), lawyer and politician
Lewis L. Gould
Bonaparte, Charles Joseph (09 June 1851–28 June 1921), lawyer and politician, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Jerome Bonaparte, a wealthy property owner, and Susan Mary Williams. His grandfather, Jerome Bonaparte, was Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother, and his grandmother, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte...
Image
Bonaparte, Charles Joseph (1851-1921)
In
Article
Bradley, William Czar (1782-1867), politician and attorney
Kenneth H. Williams
Bradley, William Czar (23 March 1782–04 March 1867), politician and attorney, was born in Westminster, Vermont, the son of Stephen Row Bradley, an attorney and U.S. senator, and Merab Atwater, who died soon after his birth. He contracted scarlet fever at age two, and it is likely that the disease resulted in hearing loss, which became pronounced. During his early years Bradley lived with his grandparents in Cheshire, Connecticut, and began school at Charlestown, New Hampshire....
Article
Brandegee, Frank Bosworth (1864-1924), lawyer and politician
Simone M. Caron
Brandegee, Frank Bosworth (08 July 1864–14 October 1924), lawyer and politician, was born in New London, Connecticut, the son of Augustus Brandegee, a lawyer, and Nancy Christian Bosworth. Brandegee grew up in an aristocratic family and followed closely in the footsteps of his father. Both men graduated Yale University, practiced law, and entered first state and later national politics as members of the Republican party. Brandegee received a B.A. from Yale in 1885, traveled a year in Europe, and was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1888. At that time he joined the firm of Brandegee, Noyes & Brandegee. From 1889 to 1902, with the exception of two years, he served as corporation counsel of New London and also as U.S. attorney for his district for a time. Elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1888, he was elected again in 1898 and became Speaker of the house in 1899. During this same period, he served as a delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1888, 1892, 1900, and 1904....
Image
Brandegee, Frank Bosworth (1864-1924)
In
Article
Breckinridge, James (1763-1833), lawyer and Federalist politician
Philander D. Chase
Breckinridge, James (07 March 1763–13 May 1833), lawyer and Federalist politician, was born in Augusta County, Virginia (the part of which became Botetourt County in 1770), the son of Robert Breckenridge, a politically active frontier planter, and Lettice Preston, a member of one of the leading families in western Virginia. He and his brothers differed from their father in spelling their surname with an ...
Article
Breckinridge, John (1760-1806), lawyer, planter, and statesman
Lowell H. Harrison
Breckinridge, John (02 December 1760–14 December 1806), lawyer, planter, and statesman, was born on a farm near Staunton, Virginia, the son of Robert Breckinridge, a farmer and member of the local gentry, and Lettice Preston. While John was still a boy the family moved to the frontier part of Augusta County that became Botetourt County. Determined to acquire an education, John entered William and Mary College in late 1780 or early 1781. His attendance was irregular, but when he left the school in 1784 he had studied for some two years, much of it under the guidance of ...
