Hezekiah Lord Hosmer (judge)

Hezekiah Lord Hosmer (born Hudson, New York, December 10, 1814; died San Francisco, California, October 31, 1893) was a lawyer, judge, journalist, and author.[1]

Biography

Hosmer was born into a prominent family. His grandfather Titus Hosmer signed the Articles of Confederation for Connecticut, his uncle Stephen Hosmer was Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. His father, Hezekiah Lord Hosmer, was a U. S. Representative from New York who died six months before Hosmer's birth.

Hosmer started studying law in Cleveland, Ohio at the age of 16. At 22 he moved west to the Maumee Valley of Ohio. From 1848 to 1854 he was the editor of the Toledo Blade newspaper. After serving as secretary to the Committee of Territories of the U. S. House of Representatives, Hosmer was appointed first Chief Justice of the Montana Territory Supreme Court in 1864 by President Abraham Lincoln, serving until 1868. He moved to San Francisco, California in 1872 and remained there until his death.

Works

Hosmer authored a number of works on various subjects: a history, Early History of the Maumee Valley (1858); an anti-slavery novel, Adela, the Octoroon (1860); and Bacon and Shakespeare in the Sonnets (1887).

Family

He was married four times; to Sarah E. Seward (died July 8, 1839), Jane Eliza Thompson (died March 4, 1848; their only child, Richard Alsop Hosmer, died April 16, 1848 aged less than six months), and Mary Daniels (Stower) b. July 8, 1818 in Abergavenny, Monmouth, Wales (sister of New York Supreme Court Justice Charles Daniels[2][3]), married Sept. 12, 1849, with whom he had three children.[4][5] His son John Allen Hosmer (1850–1907) self-published a travel narrative A Trip to the States, By Way of the Yellowstone and Missouri in Virginia City in 1867; it was the first such book published in the Montana Territory.[6] Hosmer's wife Mary died April 30, 1858 and is buried in Collingwood cemetery in Toledo, Ohio. In August 1864 in Philadelphia he married his fourth wife, Sallie Cotney (marriage license has it hand-written as Cottney), b. May 22, 1842, who survived him.[4][7]

References

  1. ↑ Biography of Hosmer, Montana Memory Project
  2. ↑ History of the Bar and Bench of California, John A. Hosmer, 1901, p. 873
  3. ↑ New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 37 (1906), The Throope Family and the Scrope Tradition, Winchester Fitch, p. 46
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Hezekiah Lord Hosmer II
  5. ↑ Genealogy of the Hosmer Family, James Hosmer, 1861
  6. ↑ Montana: A State Guide Book, Federal Writers' Project, revised ed. 1949, p. 102
  7. ↑ The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (volume 83)

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