Barnard, Daniel Dewey (11 September 1796–24 April 1861), lawyer, congressman, and diplomat, was born in East Hartford, Connecticut, the son of Timothy Barnard, a county judge, and Phebe Dewey. Barnard’s early years were spent on the family farm near Hartford, Connecticut. When he was twelve the family moved to Mendon, New York (near Rochester). His formal education started with a year at Lenox Academy, after which he transferred to Williams College, where he graduated in 1818....
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Barnard, Daniel Dewey (1796-1861), lawyer, congressman, and diplomat
Sherry H. Penney
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Barnard, Daniel Dewey (1796-1861)
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Daniel Barnard. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-99337).
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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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Bidlack, Benjamin Alden (1804-1849), lawyer, legislator, and diplomat
Edward L. Lach, Jr.
Bidlack, Benjamin Alden (08 September 1804–06 February 1849), lawyer, legislator, and diplomat, was born in Paris, Oneida County, New York, the son of Benjamin Bidlack, a pioneer farmer, and Lydia Alden Bidlack. After his family relocated to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Bidlack completed his education at local public schools and the Wilkes-Barre Academy. Intent on a career in law, he studied law in the office of Garrick Mallery, a local attorney, and was appointed deputy attorney for Luzerne County shortly after gaining admittance to the state bar. After an early marriage to Fanny Stewart ended shortly after it began (for reasons that are not known), Bidlack married Margaret Wallace on 8 September 1829. The couple had seven children....
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Bingham, Robert Worth (1871-1937), lawyer, newspaper publisher, and diplomat
William E. Ellis
Bingham, Robert Worth (08 November 1871–18 December 1937), lawyer, newspaper publisher, and diplomat, was born in Mebane, North Carolina, the son of Robert Bingham, an educator, and Delphine Louise Worth. Bingham graduated from the Bingham School, a private school run by his father, and from 1888 to 1890 attended the University of North Carolina (no degree). He married Eleanor Everhart Miller in 1896; they had three children. He received a law degree from the University of Louisville a year later and, settling in Louisville, went into law practice with fellow North Carolinian W. W. Davies....
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Blount, James Henderson (1837-1903), lawyer, congressman, and special diplomatic envoy
Robert S. La Forte
Blount, James Henderson (12 September 1837–08 March 1903), lawyer, congressman, and special diplomatic envoy, was born near the village of Clinton, Jones County, Georgia, the son of Thomas Blount and Mary Ricketts, planters. Blount, whose parents died during his childhood, was raised in the household of his older half-brother, David Blount. He attended private schools in Clinton, Georgia, and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, before graduating with honors from the University of Georgia in 1858. He read law and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1859, and after a brief practice in Clinton, joined the firm of Anderson and Simmons in nearby Macon....
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Choate, Joseph Hodges (1832-1917), lawyer and diplomat
Paul Moreno
Choate, Joseph Hodges (24 January 1832–14 May 1917), lawyer and diplomat, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of George Choate, a physician, and Margaret Manning. He was the salutatorian of the Harvard class of 1852 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1854. He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in 1855, and in 1857, after admission to the New York bar, became a partner in the firm of Evarts, Southmayd, and Choate. In October 1861 he married Caroline Dutcher Sterling; they had six children....
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Choate, Joseph Hodges (1832-1917)
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Joseph Hodges Choate. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-90753).
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Christopher, Warren (27 Oct. 1925–18 Mar. 2011), politician, diplomat, and lawyer
Dominic Barker
Christopher, Warren (27 Oct. 1925–18 Mar. 2011), politician, diplomat, and lawyer, was born Warren Minor Christopher in Scranton, North Dakota, the fourth of five children of Ernest William Christopher, a bank manager, and Catherine Anne Lemen. Of Norwegian and German descent, his background was working-class and largely shaped by the health challenges of his father, who struggled to keep the bank afloat in the Great Depression. After its failure the family relocated to California. While attending Hollywood High School, Christopher spent the afternoons working as a newspaper boy for ...
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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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Curtin, Andrew Gregg (1815-1894), lawyer, politician, and diplomat
Norman B. Ferris
Curtin, Andrew Gregg (22 April 1815–07 October 1894), lawyer, politician, and diplomat, was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the son of Roland Curtin, an iron manufacturer and county coroner and sheriff, and Jane Gregg, the daughter of U.S. congressman and senator Andrew Gregg. After attending private academies near his home, Curtin studied law with W. W. Potter of Bellefonte and with Judge ...
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Davies, Joseph Edward (29 November 1876–09 May 1958), lawyer, diplomat, and author
Keith D. Eagles
Davies, Joseph Edward (29 November 1876–09 May 1958), lawyer, diplomat, and author, was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, the son of Edward Davies, a successful wagonmaker, and Rahel Paynter, a minister of the Welsh Congregationalist church. An outstanding high school and university student, Davies took an A.B. and an LL.B. at the University of Wisconsin and practiced law in his home county from 1902 to 1906. He married Emlen Knight in 1902; they had three children....
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Dean, Arthur Hobson (1898-1987), lawyer, government adviser, and diplomat
James I. Matray
Dean, Arthur Hobson (16 October 1898–30 November 1987), lawyer, government adviser, and diplomat, was born in Ithaca, New York, the son of William Cameron Dean, an engineering laboratory assistant, and Maud Campbell Egan. In 1915 Dean enrolled at Cornell University, where he earned money for expenses working as a night clerk at a hotel and as a bookkeeper at a bank. He interrupted his studies to serve in the navy during World War I. Returning to Cornell following peace, Dean received his A.B. in 1921. He then studied law at Cornell, where he was managing editor of the ...
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Denby, Charles (1830-1904), lawyer and diplomat
David L. Anderson
Denby, Charles (16 June 1830–13 January 1904), lawyer and diplomat, was born at “Mount Joy,” the home of his mother’s family in Botetourt County, Virginia, and was the son of Nathaniel Denby, a Richmond merchant, and Jane Harvey. After attending Georgetown College in Washington, D.C., and the Collège Royal in Marseilles, France, he graduated with honors from Virginia Military Institute in 1850. He taught at the Masonic University in Selma, Alabama, before moving to Evansville, Indiana, in 1853. He read law while employed as political editor of the city’s Democratic newspaper, the ...
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Durham, John Stephens (1861-1919), diplomat, lawyer, and journalist
Thomas M. Leonard
Durham, John Stephens (18 July 1861–16 October 1919), diplomat, lawyer, and journalist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel Durham and Elizabeth Stephens. Two of his uncles, Clayton Durham and Jeremiah Durham, were noted clergymen who helped Bishop Richard Allen establish the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. A mulatto, Durham studied in the Philadelphia public schools, graduating from the Institute for Colored Youth in 1876....
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Eames, Charles (1812-1867), lawyer and diplomat
Robert E. Barnett
Eames, Charles (20 March 1812–16 March 1867), lawyer and diplomat, was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts. Little is known of his parents, except that his mother descended from Ebenezer Tidd, who had settled in New Braintree after emigrating from Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1768. Eames attended the Leicester Academy and Harvard, graduating in 1831. After a year at Harvard Law School, he continued his law studies in New York City with attorney ...
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Eustis, James Biddle (1834-1899), lawyer, politician, and diplomat
Michael J. Devine
Eustis, James Biddle (21 August 1834–09 September 1899), lawyer, politician, and diplomat, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of George Eustis, a wealthy lawyer who served as chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, and Clarisse Allain. The Eustis family had roots in Massachusetts, and after receiving his early education in New Orleans, James studied in Brookline, Massachusetts, the site of the family’s summer home. He earned an LL.B. from Harvard Law School in 1854 and returned to his native city, where he was admitted to the bar in 1856. He began the practice of law in his father’s office and soon became a leading figure in the legal profession and in the public life of New Orleans. In 1857 he married Ellen Buckner; they had seven children, five of whom survived infancy....
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Foote, Lucius Harwood (1826-1913), lawyer and diplomat
James F. Willis
Foote, Lucius Harwood (10 April 1826–04 June 1913), lawyer and diplomat, was born in Winfield, New York, the son of Lucius Foote, a Congregational minister, and Electa Harwood. In childhood Foote moved often, as his father received appointments in churches in New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Wisconsin. He attended Knox College and Western Reserve but did not graduate. In 1853 he traveled overland to California to seek his fortune....
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Goldberg, Arthur Joseph (1908-1990), lawyer, jurist, and diplomat
David L. Stebenne
Goldberg, Arthur Joseph (08 August 1908–19 January 1990), lawyer, jurist, and diplomat, was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Rebecca (maiden name unknown) and Joseph Goldberg, a peddler. Goldberg grew up in an immigrant slum on Chicago’s West Side, where he led a life filled with hard work. Thanks to extraordinary intelligence and drive, he managed to graduate from Benjamin Harrison Public High School in 1924, the first member of his family ever to get that much schooling. He then attended Crane Junior College, from which he soon made his way into Northwestern Law School. During his three years there, Goldberg compiled the best academic record in the school’s history up to that point and served as editor of the law review, while continuing to work part-time. He earned his bachelor of law degree in 1928 and his doctor of science in law degree one year later. He then joined the Chicago firm of Pritzger and Pritzger. In 1931 he married Dorothy Kurgans, an art student he had met at Northwestern; they were to have two children....
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Gore, Christopher (1758-1827), Federalist statesman, diplomat, and lawyer
Malcolm Lester
Gore, Christopher (21 September 1758–01 March 1827), Federalist statesman, diplomat, and lawyer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of John Gore, a paint and color dealer, and Frances Pinkney. Paternally, he was descended from a Puritan family that migrated from Hampshire in England to Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1635. After attending the Boston Public Latin School, Gore entered Harvard College where he graduated in 1776. Although his Loyalist father fled Boston in 1776, Gore remained in Massachusetts and served the revolutionary cause as an officer in an artillery regiment. John Gore returned to America from England in 1785 and regained his citizenship. The taint of his father’s Toryism persisted, however, and Gore’s opponents used it against him when he was a candidate for the Massachusetts ratifying convention in 1787....
