Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/30



HON. REUBEN P. BOISE.

The subject of this sketch was born at Blanforcl, Massachusetts, in the year 1811). His father, Hon. Reuben Boise, was a farmer and a prominent man in the polities of his State, having been County Commissioner, County Clerk and member of the State Senate of Massachusetts. He also tilled other offices of honor and trust with credit to himself and the State. In 1843 Judge Boise graduaied at Williams College, in the classical course, and, being struck with the Western fever, he immigrated to Missouri, where he commenced his career as a school teacher and followed that occupation for two years, when he returned to his native State and begun the study of law under his uncle, Hon. Patrick Boise, at Westfield, Massachusetts. In 1848 he was admitted to the bar and at once entered upon the practice of his profession at Chieopee Falls, where he remained for two years. Being again desirous of seeking his fortunes in a new country, he came by the way of the Isthmus to Oregon, and settled at Portland in the spring of 1851. He immedijitely commenced the practice of law, succeeding much better than he had anticipated. In about a year the Territorial Legisla- ture elected him Prosecuting Attorney of the first and second districts. In 1854 he, in company with Hon. James K. Kelly and Hon. D. R. Bigelow, was elected Code Commissioner for Oregon. At that early date the Terri- tory had no laws compiled in book form for its government, hence this was the first code ever prepared for Oregon. The Commissioners swept away much of the old common law that was cumbersome and intricate and founded our present mode of practice. He then purchased a farm near Dallas and moved thereon. In 1854 he was re-elected Prosecuting Attor- ney, and at the same election honored by Polk comity with a seat in the Territorial Legislature. Two years afterwards he \.as again elected a mem- ber of that body, both terms taking a very prominent part in its delibera- tions. In 1857 he was one of the Representatives of Polk county in the Constitutional Convention, where he was Chairman of the Committee on Legislation, and prepared that portion of the Constitution relating to the Legislative Department, and otherwise materially assisted in furnishing Oregon with her fundamental laws. In this same year he was appointed by President Buchanan one of the Supreme Judges of the Territory. The next year, after the admission of the State into the Union, he was elected to that office, and from 1862 to 1864 was Chief Justice. Upon the expira- tion of his term in 1864 he was again re-elected for six years, during four of which he was Chief Justice. In 1870 he was again chosen by the people to fill that honorable position, but Hon. B. F. Bonham, his competitor, having commenced an action to contest his seat on the bench, and not desiring to stand the cost of a long and expensive litigation, he resigned and returned to the practice of his profession. In 1874 he was elected by the Legisla- ture one of the Capitol Building Commissioners, which office he held until 1876, when he was again elected to his old position on the Supreme Bench. Two years later, the Legislature having divided the Supreme and Circuit Judges into distinct classes, he was appointed one of the Judges of the Su- preme Court, and acquired considerable celebrity on account of his many dissenting opinions. In 1880 he was elected Judge of the Third Judicial