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He was educated in the schools of Wethersfield, Hartford, New Haven and Middletown; was graduated from Daniel H. Chase’s school in Middletown in 1851, was a student in Wesleyan university, Middletown, 1851-54, and was graduated from Yale college, A.B., 1856 (A.M., 1859), in the same class with Henry Billings Brown, his associate on the United States Supreme court bench. He then studied law in the office of his uncle, David Dudley Field, in New York city, 1856-57, and was graduated at the Albany (New York) law school in 1858. He began the practice of law in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1859. He there gained a high rank in his profession and was made United States Commissioner of the Circuit court for the district of Kansas by Judge Archibald Williams, in 1861; he was judge of the Probate and Criminal courts of the County of Leavenworth, 1863-64; judge of the first judicial district of Kansas, 1865-69; district attorney for Leavenworth county, 1869-70, and judge of the Supreme Court of Kansas, 1870-84. He was appointed by President Arthur judge of the United States Circuit court for the eighth district in 1884, serving 1884-89, and by President Harrison associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Justice Stanley Matthews. He was commissioned December 18, 1889, and took his seat on the Supreme bench, January 6, 1890.

While on the Supreme bench of the state of Kansas, he handed down the decision that made women in that state eligible to the office of county superintendent of public schools; another sustaining the right of married women to money possessed by them at the time of marriage and to all money earned by them after marriage. He also gave a dissenting opinion on the question of the power of a municipality to issue bonds to assist in building a railroad. As United States circuit judge he entered the decree sustaining the Maxwell land-grant, the largest private grant sustained in the United States. He took high rank as a jurist upon the United States Supreme bench and was also noted for his scholarly public addresses delivered on various occasions. While a resident of Leavenworth he was a member of the Library Association, of the City Board of Education, superintendent of the Public Schools of Leavenworth and president of the State Teachers’ Association. In 1892 he became lecturer on corporation law in the Columbian university law school, Washington, District of Columbia, and subsequently lecturer on Equity