Atchison, David Rice (11 August 1807–26 January 1886), lawyer and U.S. senator, was born in Frogtown, in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, the son of William Atchison and Catherine Allen, farmers. Educated at Transylvania University, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1827. After practicing for three years in Carlisle, Kentucky, he moved to Liberty in western Missouri....
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Atchison, David Rice (1807-1886), lawyer and U.S. senator
William E. Parrish
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Atchison, David Rice (1807-1886)
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David Rice Atchison. Daguerreotype from the studio of Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109952).
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Baldwin, Roger Sherman (1793-1863), lawyer, governor, and senator
Sylvia B. Larson
Baldwin, Roger Sherman (04 January 1793–19 February 1863), lawyer, governor, and senator, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of Simeon Baldwin, a lawyer, judge, congressman, and mayor of New Haven, and Rebecca Sherman. Baldwin was a direct descendant of the Puritan settlers of Connecticut and the Founding Fathers of the nation. His father’s family was among the original New Haven colonists, and his mother was the daughter of ...
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Baldwin, Roger Sherman (1793-1863)
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Roger S. Baldwin. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-90730).
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Bankhead, John Hollis (08 July 1872–12 June 1946), lawyer, businessman and U.S. senator
Justus D. Doenecke
Bankhead, John Hollis (08 July 1872–12 June 1946), lawyer, businessman and U.S. senator, was born in Moscow in Lamar County, Alabama, the son of John Hollis Bankhead (1842–1920), a farmer and later U.S. senator, and Tallulah Brockman. After spending his childhood in Wetumpka and Fayette, Alabama, he received an A.B. from the University of Alabama (1891) and an LL.B. from Georgetown University (1893). In 1894 Bankhead married Musa Harkins of Fayette, with whom he had three children. Settling in Jasper, he became a lawyer for the Alabama Power Company and for leading railroads. From 1911 to 1925 he was president of the Bankhead Coal Company, a firm founded by his father, which owned one of Alabama’s largest mines....
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Bayard, James Asheton (15 November 1799–13 June 1880), lawyer and U.S. senator
Sylvia B. Larson
Bayard, James Asheton (15 November 1799–13 June 1880), lawyer and U.S. senator, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of James Asheton Bayard, a and Ann Bassett. His family was socially and politically important, and his father was a leading Federalist during the formative years of the United States. His mother was the daughter of Delaware’s chief justice ...
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Bayard, Richard Henry (1796-1868), lawyer, senator, and diplomat
Sylvia B. Larson
Bayard, Richard Henry (26 September 1796–04 March 1868), lawyer, senator, and diplomat, was born in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of James Asheton Bayard, a Federalist leader, and Ann Bassett. Bayard graduated from Princeton College in 1814 and then read for the law. Toward the end of the War of 1812 his studies were briefly interrupted by military service. In 1815 he married Mary Sophia Carroll, granddaughter of ...
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Bell, Samuel (1770-1850), lawyer, governor, and senator
Donald B. Cole
Bell, Samuel (09 February 1770–23 December 1850), lawyer, governor, and senator, was born in Londonderry, New Hampshire, the son of John Bell and Mary Ann Gilmore, farmers. His father, a tall, rugged, hot-tempered man, was a commanding figure in his community, who served as a deacon and selectman and as a member of the New Hampshire committee of safety and provincial congress during the Revolution. After working on the farm until he was eighteen, Bell studied at a local school and attended New Ipswich Academy before entering the sophomore class at Dartmouth College in 1791. Following graduation in 1793, he studied law in Amherst, New Hampshire, under ...
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Benjamin, Judah Philip (1811-1884), Confederate cabinet member, U.S. senator, and lawyer
Michael B. Chesson
Benjamin, Judah Philip (06 August 1811–06 May 1884), Confederate cabinet member, U.S. senator, and lawyer, was born at Christiansted, St. Croix, West Indies, the son of Philip Benjamin, a shopkeeper, and Rebecca de Mendes. St. Croix was under British rule at the time of Benjamin’s birth. He grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Though his father’s circumstances were always modest, wealthy relatives and other benefactors helped him attend Yale (1825–1827), but he left as a junior under circumstances that remain unclear....
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Benjamin, Judah Philip (1811-1884)
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Judah P. Benjamin. Daguerreotype from the studio of Mathew B. Brady. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-109992).
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Bogy, Lewis Vital (1813-1877), lawyer and U.S. senator
William E. Parrish
Bogy, Lewis Vital (09 April 1813–20 September 1877), lawyer and U.S. senator, was born at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri Territory, the son of Joseph Bogy, a lawyer, and Marie Beauvais. He was educated in the common schools and then in 1832 began reading law with Judge ...
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Brown, John (1757-1837), lawyer, congressman, and U.S. senator from Kentucky
Stephen Aron
Brown, John (12 September 1757–28 August 1837), lawyer, congressman, and U.S. senator from Kentucky, was born in Staunton, Virginia, the son of John Brown, a prominent Presbyterian minister in the Shenandoah Valley, and Margaret Preston, whose brother William Preston held a number of important government posts in western Virginia. Schooled at his father’s Liberty Hall Academy, which later became Washington and Lee University, the younger John Brown continued his education at Princeton, his father’s alma mater. Brown’s tenure at Princeton was interrupted by the Revolution. When ...
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Carlile, John Snyder (1817-1878), lawyer and politician
Bruce Tap
Carlile, John Snyder (16 December 1817–24 October 1878), lawyer and politician, was born in Winchester, Virginia; his parents’ names are unknown. He was educated at home by his mother. His father died when Carlile was young, and at the age of fourteen Carlile worked in a country store as a clerk to help support his mother. When he was seventeen he started his own business as a merchant, but that failed, leaving Carlile in debt. He paid his debts in full, even after all legal obligations had ceased....
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Carpenter, Matthew Hale (1824-1881), lawyer and politician
Brooks D. Simpson
Carpenter, Matthew Hale (22 December 1824–24 February 1881), lawyer and politician, was born in Moretown, Vermont, the son of Ira Carpenter, a farmer and local politician, and Esther Anne Luce. Christened Decatur Merritt Hammond Carpenter, he changed his name in 1850 for reasons that are not clear. Known for his skill at public speaking, Carpenter at fourteen studied law under Paul Dillingham of Waterbury, a distinguished lawyer who served a term as governor. He entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1843, but he grew dissatisfied with the curriculum’s emphasis on mathematics and natural sciences and withdrew after two years to resume his legal studies. Admitted to the Vermont bar in 1847, Carpenter spent six months studying under ...
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Christiancy, Isaac Peckham (1812-1890), lawyer, judge, and senator
Vernon L. Volpe
Christiancy, Isaac Peckham (12 March 1812–08 September 1890), lawyer, judge, and senator, was born in Johnstown, Fulton County, New York, the son of Thomas Christiancy, a blacksmith, edge tool maker, and farmer, and Zilpha Peckham. When Isaac was twelve, his father was injured, leaving Isaac responsible for helping to support his family by tending their small farm. At age eighteen Christiancy began to teach school while attending academies at Johnstown, Kingsborough, and Ovid, New York. In 1834 he undertook legal studies with the help of John Maynard. Via an Erie Canal packet boat and a Great Lakes steamer, he journeyed to Monroe County, Michigan, in May 1836. There he soon entered the law office of ...
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Cooper, John Sherman (1901-1991), lawyer, senator, and diplomat
Sylvia B. Larson
Cooper, John Sherman (23 August 1901–21 February 1991), lawyer, senator, and diplomat, was born in Somerset, Kentucky, the son of John Sherman Cooper and Helen Gertrude Tartar. His father, considered the wealthiest man in town and a leader in Pulaski County, was both a county and a circuit judge, as his father had been before him. It was “assumed that the next generation of Coopers would provide the county its leaders” (Krebs, p. 13). Cooper attended Centre College in Kentucky, then Yale University, where he received his degree in 1923. He began to study law at Harvard but returned to Kentucky in 1925 because his father’s death and a recession in 1920 had depleted the family’s resources. During the next twenty-five years Cooper assumed financial responsibility for the family and sent his six brothers and sisters to college. He gained admission to the bar in 1928 at age twenty-seven....
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Costigan, Edward Prentiss (1874-1939), lawyer and U.S. senator
Fred Greenbaum
Costigan, Edward Prentiss (01 July 1874–17 January 1939), lawyer and U.S. senator, was born in King William County, Virginia, the son of Emilie Sigur and George Purcell Costigan, Sr., a lawyer and judge. His father successfully invested in mining ventures, and the family settled in Denver, Colorado. Illness interrupted his studies at Harvard University. Joining his brother, George, Jr., in Salt Lake City, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1897. He completed his Harvard A.B. in 1899 and began practice in Denver in 1900. In 1903 he married Mabel Cory; childless, they became lifetime personal and political companions....
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Costigan, Edward Prentiss (1874-1939)
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Edward P. Costigan. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-105093).
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Culberson, Charles Allen (1855-1925), lawyer, governor, and U.S. senator
Lewis L. Gould
Culberson, Charles Allen (10 June 1855–19 March 1925), lawyer, governor, and U.S. senator, was born in Dadeville, Alabama, the son of David Browning Culberson, a lawyer, and Eugenia Kimbal. His parents moved to Texas when he was young, and he grew up in Jefferson. He attended Virginia Military Institute, from which he graduated in 1874. After studying law with his father, he received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1877. He married Sallie Harrison in 1882; they had one daughter. While practicing law in Jefferson, Culberson served briefly as county attorney. His father, in the meantime, had become an influential Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. A brother recalled that Culberson “took a drink now and then and played an occasional game of poker or whist” (Madden, p. 7)....
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Curtis, Carl T. (1905-2000), educator, lawyer, and politician
E. A. Kral
Curtis, Carl T. (15 March 1905–24 January 2000), educator, lawyer, and politician, was born Carl Thomas Curtis near Minden, Kearney County, Nebraska, the youngest of the eight children of Frank Oscar Curtis, a farmer and courthouse caretaker, and Alberta Mae Smith Curtis. His grandfather had changed the family name from Swanson to Curtis upon immigration to the United States from Sweden in the 1860s. After graduating from Minden High School in 1923, Carl Curtis taught for a year in Danbury, Nebraska, then enrolled for a year at Nebraska Wesleyan. From 1925 to 1930 he taught at a Kearney County school and the Minden Elementary School, where he also served as principal. Meanwhile, he attended summer sessions at Nebraska Wesleyan in 1927 and the University of Nebraska in 1928 and studied at a local law office part time. Admitted to the Nebraska bar in 1930, he maintained a private practice at Minden until 1939. He married a local teacher, Lois Wylie Atwater, in 1931; the couple adopted two children. After his first wife's death in 1970, he married Mildred Genier Baker two years later....
