George Pillsbury (1816 - 1898)

George Pillsbury was born in Sutton, New Hampshire in 1816 to John Pillsbury and Susan Pillsbury (née Wadleigh). Both were the descendants of English settlers who had been active political and civic leaders in New England. Pillsbury attended the local schools until the age of 18 when he moved to Boston, Massachusetts to work as […]

John Pillsbury (1827 - 1901)

John Pillsbury was born in Sutton, New Hampshire of English descent, the son of John and Susan (Wadleigh) Pillsbury. He was a descendant of Joshua Pillsbury, who emigrated from England to Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1640. In 1851, he opened a store in Warner, New Hampshire, partnering with Walter Harriman, a future Governor of New Hampshire […]

P. T. Barnum (1810 - 1891)

Phineas Taylor “P. T.” Barnum (July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American politician, showman, and businessman remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Although Barnum was also an author, publisher, philanthropist, and for some time a politician, he said of himself, “I am a showman by […]

Charles Pillsbury (1842 - 1899)

Charles Pillsbury was drawn to business in Minneapolis after experiencing and observing the commercial interests in Montreal, which processed grain from the west. Pillsbury’s uncle, John S. Pillsbury, had settled at the Falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis in 1855; in 1869, Charles Pillsbury moved to the growing city of Mineapolis and established his flour […]

Erastus Wiman (1834 - 1834)

Erastus Wiman was born in Churchville, Upper Canada (now part of Ontario) on April 21, 1834. Wiman’s first job was at the North American in Toronto (not to be confused with the Philadelphia-based paper) at age 16, as an apprentice printer for a salary of $1.50 a week. After four years, he worked as a reporter […]

Thaddeus Stevens (1792 - 1868)

Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans, Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, […]

Butler Ames (1871 - 1954)

Butler Ames (August 22, 1871 – November 6, 1954) was an American politician, engineer, soldier and businessman. He was the son of Adelbert Ames and grandson of Benjamin Franklin Butler, both decorated generals in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Ames attended the public schools and Phillips Exeter Academy, in […]

Benjamin Butler (1795 - 1858)

Benjamin  was the son of Medad Butler and Hannah Butler (née Tylee), of Kinderhook Landing, in Columbia County, New York. He studied at Hudson Academy in Hudson, New York, and read law with Martin Van Buren, whose son John Van Buren later read law with Butler. Butler was admitted to the bar in 1817, and became […]

Roger Hoar (1887 - 1963)

The Harvard-educated Roger Hoar was the product of a New England family—the son of Sherman Hoar, grandson of former US Attorney General Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, great-grandson of Samuel Hoar, and great-great grandson of American founding father Roger Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Born in Waltham, Massachusetts, Roger Hoar received his bachelor’s degree from […]

George Hoar (1826 - 1904)

George Hoar graduated from Harvard University in 1846, then studied at Harvard Law School and settled in Worcester, Massachusetts where he practiced law before entering politics. Initially a member of the Free Soil Party, he joined the Republican Party shortly after its founding, and was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1852), and the […]

Sherman Hoar (1860 - 1898)

Sherman Hoar (July 30, 1860 – October 7, 1898), was an American lawyer, member of Congress representing Massachusetts, and U.S. District Attorney for Massachusetts. As a young man he acted as model for the head of the John Harvard statue now in the Harvard Yard. Hoar graduated from Harvard College in 1882 and Harvard Law School […]

Ebenezer Hoar (1816 - 1895)

Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (February 21, 1816 – January 31, 1895) was an American politician, lawyer, and justice from Massachusetts. He was appointed U.S. Attorney General in 1869 by President Ulysses S. Grant; he became the first U.S. Attorney General to head the newly created Department of Justice in July 1870. As Attorney General Hoar worked […]

Martha Beall Mitchell (1918 - 1976)

Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to cotton broker George V. Beall and teacher Arie Beall (née Ferguson), Martha Beall Mitchell graduated from Pine Bluff High School in 1937, She attended Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Miami, from which she received a BA in history. She […]

Hugh Legaré (1797 - 1843)

Hugh Legaré was born in Charleston, South Carolina, of Huguenot and Scottish ancestry. Partly due to his inability to share in the amusements of his fellows as a result of a deformity due to a vaccine poisoning suffered before he was five (the poison permanently arresting the growth and development of his legs), Legaré was an […]

George Wickersham (1858 - 1936)

George Woodward Wickersham (September 19, 1858 – January 25, 1936) was an American lawyer and Presidential Cabinet Secretary. He was the father of Cornelius Wendell Wickersham, US Army Brigadier General and Lawyer. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, George Wickersham graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1883, Wickersham entered the old law firm of Strong and Cadwalader, and […]

James McGranery (1895 - 1962)

James Patrick McGranery (July 8, 1895 – December 23, 1962) was an American lawyer and politician. He served as the United States Attorney General during the Truman administration from April 4, 1952 until January 20, 1953. James McGranery was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Patrick McGranery, and Bridget (née Gallagher). McGranery served in World […]

Henry Gilpin (1801 - 1860)

Henry Dilworth Gilpin (April 14, 1801 – January 29, 1860) was an American lawyer and statesman of Quaker extraction who served as Attorney General of the United States under President Martin Van Buren. Henry Gilpin was the son of Joshua Gilpin and Mary Dilworth, and was born in Lancaster, England, just before his parents returned to […]

Charles Lee (1758 - 1815)

Charles Lee (1758 – June 24, 1815) was an American lawyer from Virginia. He served as United States Attorney General from 1795 until 1801 and Secretary of State ad interim from May 13, 1800, to June 5, 1800. Charles was born to Henry (1730–1787) and Lucy (Grymes) Lee on his father’s plantation of Leesylvania in Prince […]

Herbert Brownell (1904 - 1996)

Herbert Brownell was admitted to the bar in New York, and began his practice in New York City. In February 1929, he joined the law firm of Lord Day & Lord in New York, and except for periods of public service, he remained with them until his retirement in 1989. He married Doris McCarter on […]

Benjamin Brewster (1816 - 1888)

In 1857, Benjamin Brewster married as his first wife, Elizabeth von Myerbach de Reinfeldts, the widow of Dr. Shulte of Paris, France. Elizabeth died in 1868; however, Benjamin continued to spend many vacations with his wife’s parents in Germany near Cologne. He was remarried on July 12, 1870. His second wife, Mary Walker, was born in […]

Elliot Richardson (1920 - 1999)

Elliot Richardson had the distinction of serving in three high-level Executive Branch posts in a single year—the tumultuous year of 1973—as the Watergate Scandal came to dominate the attention of official Washington, and the American public at large. He served three relatively uneventful years as the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for a popular […]

John Sirica (1904 - 1992)

John Sirica fought under assumed names as a boxer in Washington and Miami in the 1920s and 1930s. He was torn between a career as a fighter and the career in law that he followed after earning a law degree at his third attempt. Sirica was in private practice of law in Washington, D.C. from 1926 […]

Maurice Stans (1908 - 1998)

Maurice Stans was born on March 22, 1908 in Shakopee, Minnesota, the son of James Hubert Stans and the former Mathilda Nyssen Stans. His father was the only child of Jan Hendrik Stans and Maria Catharina Crijns, a Belgian couple who immigrated to the United States in 1880. Maurice Stans graduated from Shakopee High School […]

Virginia Minor (1824 - 1894)

Virginia Louisa Minor (March 27, 1824, Caroline County, Virginia – August 14, 1894, St. Louis, Missouri) was an American women’s suffrage activist. She is best remembered as the plaintiff in Minor v. Happersett, an 1874 United States Supreme Court case in which Minor unsuccessfully argued that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave […]

James Hood (1942 - 2013)

James Alexander Hood (November 10, 1942 – January 17, 2013) was one of the first African Americans to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 and was made famous when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked him from enrolling at the all-white university, an incident which became known as the “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”. On […]

Muriel Humphrey Brown (1912 - 1998)

Muriel Humphrey Brown was born Muriel Fay Buck in Huron, South Dakota, daughter of Andrew E. Buck and his wife, the former Jessie Mae Pierce. She attended Huron College and met Humphrey in 1934, when she was working as a bookkeeper. They married on September 3, 1936, saying, “It was love at first waltz”. They […]

Herbert Humphrey (1911 - 1978)

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969. Humphrey twice served in the United States Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 to 1964 and 1971 to 1978. He was […]

Jerry Parr (1930 - 2015)

Jerry Parr received his B.A. in English and Philosophy from Vanderbilt University in 1962. In 1987, he received his M.S. in pastoral counseling from Loyola University in Maryland. Parr was also an ordained minister. In 1987, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Eureka College. Jerry Parr’s interest in joining the Secret Service originated […]

Alberto Erede (1909 - 2001)

Alberto Erede (8 November 1909 – 12 April 2001) was an Italian conductor, particularly associated with operatic work. Born in Genoa, Erede studied there before studying at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan, then with Felix Weingartner at Basle, and after this with Fritz Busch at Dresden. He made his debut in Turin in 1935, conducting Der […]

Suzanne Danco (1911 - 2000)

Suzanne Danco was born in Brussels and grew up in a Flemish background, although French was her native language. She studied piano, music history and singing at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles, and in 1936 won a vocal competition in Vienna after which conductor Erich Kleiber recommended that she continue her studies in Prague with […]