- JAMES R. DOOLITTLE, another one of the early judges of Rock
county, was born in Hampton,
- N.Y., January 3, 1815, was a graduate of Geneva college,
New York, afterwards studied law, was admitted to the bar of
the Supreme court of New York in 1837, entered upon its practice
in that state, and was for several years district attorney of
the county of Wyoming. In 1851 he came to Wisconsin and settled
at Racine in the practice of his profession, was elected judge
of the First Judicial circuit in 1853, which office he resigned
in 1856. In 1857 he was elected United States senator for a
full term, in which body he served on the committee on foreign
affairs, commerce, military affairs and was chairman of the committee
on Indian affairs. He was a member of the peace congress of
1861, was re-elected to the senate in 1863, his term ending in
1869. During the summer recess of 1865, as a member of a special
committee of the senate, he visited the Indian tribes west of
the Mississippi. He was a delegate to the national union convention
held at Philadelphia in 1856, was its president and took an active
part in its proceedings. At the close of his career in the senate
of the United States, Judge DOOLITTLE assumed the practice of
the law in Chicago, where he continued for many years. During
the war Judge DOOLITTLE did much in sustaining the government
by acts and addresses, and during the remainder of his life,
was an active and prominent member of the Democratic party, and
in 1871 was its candidate for governor of Wisconsin.
-
- Taken from "Rock County, Wisconsin, Vol. II"
by William Fiske Brown, (c)1908, p. 721.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|