|
MEMBERS OF THE CALHOUN AND KALAMAZOO
COUNTY BARS BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
And despite the able counsel opposed to him he won the suit. He practiced law two years at Little Falls, Herkimer county. In one of his suits he was taken with bleeding at the lungs in the court room. This compelled him to abandon, for a time, his chosen profession. In the spring of 1836 he came to Michigan for the benefit of his health, and to improve it he sought out door work. Having first settled at Allegan, which was then nearly an unreclaimed wilderness, he became surveyor, engineer, geologist and lawyer by turns. He surveyed the west end of the proposed routes of the Clinton and Kalamazoo canals. At the end of eight years he returned to the practice of his profession in Allegan.
In 1842 he was elected to the legislature, where he made his mark and was re-elected twice, and then, in 1847, was sent to the state senate, and was president pro tem. of that body during the long session of 1846, when the revised statutes wIere discussed and adopted. In 1848 he was again elected to the house, and sat in the first legislature which assembled in the then new capitol . at Lansing. He was also a member of the legislature of 1855. In the interval he practiced law. In 1858 he was elected circuit judge, and tried the first case in the new county of Muskegon in 1859. His circuit was one of very large extent, when there were but few roads; and it entailed on him the most severe labors. In 1866 his circuit was changed to Van Buren, Kalamazoo and Allegan counties.
He was at first an anti-slavery man of the old school. Then he became a free soiler, and ran on the first free soil and whig ticket, in 1849, for governor against John S. Barry, democrat, receiving 23,540 votes against 27 837 for his opponent. He finally became a democrat. But in whatever party
he was, while he remained in it he was an ardent and able advocate of its cause.
Michigan Bar
Page 6
|
|
Thank you for visiting. If you have found the information here interesting please consider making a donation.
|
