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WILLIAM MONROE MCCLUER was born in Franklinville, Cattaraugus County, New York, September 6th, 1831. An accident, which resulted in a long illness and permanent physical disability, changed the tenor of his life and turned him aside from a scholarship at West Point; and when he recovered his health he entered the then famous school of Temple Hill at Geneseo, N. Y. After graduation there, he read law and graduated from the state and national law school at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. He was admitted to the bar in Rochester, N. Y., September 6th, 1853, and at once entered into the practice of his profession in his native town.

In 1855 he came to Stillwater, Minnesota, and began his professional practice in the courts of his adopted state, which continued until his promotion to the bench. He was several times elected county attorney of Washington county, and also district attorney when the law of the state gave a district attorney to each judicial district. He was admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, D. C., February, 1876.

In November, 1881, he was appointed a judge of the First Judicial District of Minnesota by Governor Pillsbury. Afterward he was twice elected to the position without any contest, and served as judge until his death. During his term of office much litigation of importance came before him and large interests were involved. A man well known in the state, he gave to Minnesota, as well as to the town which was his home, such loyal and faithful service as it was his nature to give.

Stricken instantly in the full and high enjoyment of his physical and mental powers, he died August 3d, 1890, leaving behind him a fragrant memory among those whom he loved and who honored him. It could be said of him, as he so often said gently to anyone who criticised harshly another's word or deed: "With malice toward none, with charity for all.”

He was married to Helen A. Jencks, in Waterford, New York, September 27th, 1858, and was survived by his wife and

one son.

CHARLES MONROE MCCLUER was born in Stillwater, Minn., August 5th, 1859. He was the only child of Judge William M. McCluer and Helen A. McCluer. His education was in the public schools of Stillwater, afterward one year at Williston

Seminary, Easthampton, Mass., and was completed at Quincy, Mass., in the Adams Academy, under the care of the late Professor Dimmock.

On his return from school he read law in the law office of his father, and was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1882. He never practiced his profession in the courts, but became engaged in business, which after his father's appointment to the bench, it seemed to be necessary for him to assume.

He was a man of fine intellectual tastes, being interested in a wide range of literature; but during the last year of his life he read chiefly in American history. He was elected a life member of the Minnesota Historical Society, November 14th, 1892.

His fondness for military matters made him active in the National Guard, and one of his last acts was the purchase of a large flag for the armory of Stillwater, the home of Company K, of which he was captain. It was at half mast at his death the first time it was unfurled.

He was a Mason and Knight Templar, and a Son of the American Revolution.

He died October 24th, 1894, leaving his widowed mother to mourn her only child.

OTHER DECEASED LIFE MEMBERS, 1889 TO 1898.

WILLIAM L. BANNING (1855)* was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in January, 1814, and received his education in Philadelphia, where he began the practice of law. He removed to St. Paul in 1855, and was engaged in banking until the Civil War, in which he enlisted and served as commissary of the Third Minnesota Volunteers, with rank of captain. After his return to St. Paul, he was president of the St. Paul and Lake Superior railroad company during the construction of its line from this city to Duluth, which was completed in 1870. During many years, Mr. Banning was a director of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, and in 1877 was the Democratic candidate for governor of Minnesota. He married Miss Mary A. Sweeny in 1849, who, with two sons and three daughters, survived his death, which took place November 26th, 1893. (Also see Newson's "Pen Pictures," 1886, pages 505-6.)

The date thus designated notes the year of election to this society.

JACOB WALES BASS (1849) was born in Braintree, Vt., January 2d, 1815. Leaving the home farm at the age of fourteen years, he was employed in a Boston wholesale house during the next seven years. In 1836 he came west, spending about a year in Chicago, and afterward several years in Wisconsin, at Racine, Platteville, Prairie du Chien, and Chippewa Falls, successively farming, trading, and manufacturing lumber. In August, 1847, Mr. Bass began his permanent residence in the area which is now Minnesota, at St. Paul, where he continued to reside until his death, April 18th, 1889. He was at first proprietor of a log-built hotel, the "St. Paul House." Two years later, in 1849, this house became practically the capitol building of the incipient Minnesota Territory, as Governor Ramsey and Secretary Smith had their offices there. Having sold the hotel that year, Mr. Bass was the postmaster of St. Paul from 1849 to 1853, being then and afterward engaged in commercial and real estate business. In 1842 he married Miss Martha D. Brunson, daughter of the pioneer missionary, Rev. Alfred Brunson. Their sons are Col. Edgar W. Bass, of West Point, N. Y., a corresponding member of this Society, and Frank B. Bass, of St. Paul. (See Andrews' "History of St. Paul," 1890, Part II, pages 52-54, with portrait in Part I, page 84.)

JOHN BALL BRISBIN (1855) was born in Schuylerville, N. Y., January 10th, 1827; graduated from Yale College in 1846; and was admitted to the bar in 1849, beginning practice in his native town. Thence he removed in 1853 to St. Paul, where he resided until his death, March 22d, 1898. He was presi dent of the Territorial Council in 1856-57; and was a member of the State Legislature in 1858, and again in 1863. He was elected mayor of St. Paul, by a unanimous vote, in 1857, this being probably due in part to his successful opposition, with others, to the recent efforts in the Territorial Council for the removal of the capital to St. Peter. Mr. Brisbin ranked high as a lawyer, especially as an eloquent advocate. When he retired from the active practice of the law, he donated his extensive law library to the Ramsey County Bar Association, of which he was one of the founders. (See Newson's "Pen Pictures," 1886, pages 403-6; and "Biographical Dictionary of Chicago, Minnesota Cities etc.," 1892,

pages 970-3, with portrait.)

HENRY L. CARVER (1883) was born September 6th, 1830, at Nunda, N. Y.; was educated there and in the Poughkeepsie Law School; was admitted to the bar in 1854; and in the same year came to Minnesota, settling in St. Paul. He was a member of the State Legislature in 1861-62. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company G, Sixth Minnesota Regiment. He served as first lieutenant and later as captain and assistant quartermaster; and at the close of his term of service was brevetted lieutenant colonel. He was a public-spirited citizen, and the early construction of street railways in St. Paul was due largely to his efforts. He died August 9th, 1893.

GORDON EARL COLE (1870) was born June 18th, 1833, in Cheshire, Mass.; graduated from the Dane Law School, of Harvard University, in 1854; and came to Minnesota in 1856, settling in Faribault. In 1859 he was elected Attorney General of the State, and was twice re-elected, continuing in this office until 1866. His law practice extended throughout Minnesota, and often called him before the higher courts in other parts of the country. He was the attorney who in the winter of 1881-82 secured the payment of the State railway bonds. He died October 4th, 1890, in London, while on his way to Carlsbad in the hope of regaining health there. A more extended biographic sketch is given in the "History of Rice County," 1882, pages 368-9; and in the "U. S. Biographical Dictionary," Minnesota volume, 1879, pages 442-6, with portrait.

ELIAS FRANKLIN DRAKE (1868) was born in Urbana, Ohio, December 21st, 1813. He was reared on a farm; then was clerk several years in a general merchandise store in Lebanon, Ohio; afterward read law and was admitted to the bar in Columbus, Ohio; and from 1837 to 1852 was a bank cashier and lawyer in Xenia, Ohio. During the next ten years he was much engaged in railway building in Ohio and Indiana. Coming to Minnesota in 1861, he constructed during the next year the first railroad in this state, extending ten miles from from St. Paul to St. Anthony. Soon afterward, with associates, he undertook the construction of the railway from St. Paul up the Minnesota Valley and across southwestern Minnesota to Sioux City, completing it in 1872. He was president

of the Minnesota Historical Society in 1873, and was an influential member of the State Senate in 1873-75. He died February 14th, 1892, at Coronado Beach, California. (Also see Andrews' "History of St. Paul," 1890, Part II, pages 45-48, with portrait in Part I, page 78.)

ERASTUS SMITH EDGERTON (1856) was born in Franklin, N. Y., December 9th, 1816. In 1837, because of his father's death, he succeeded to the management of a considerable estate, entering at the age of twenty-one years on his active business life. He came west in 1850, living first in Wisconsin and Illinois. He settled in St. Paul in June, 1853, and was engaged in banking business for five years with the late Charles N. Mackubin, and afterward wholly on his own account. In 1864 he organized the Second National Bank of St. Paul, of which he was president. He died at his early home in Franklin, N. Y., April 15th, 1893. (See Newson's "Pen Pictures," pages 400-403; and Andrews' History, Part II, pages 10-12, with portrait in Part I, page 44.)

HENRY HALE (1867) was born in Chelsea, Vt., June 21st, 1814; graduated from the University of Vermont, at Burlington, in 1840; and studied law with Hon. George P. Marsh, being admitted to the bar in 1843. During several years he was editor of the Burlington Free Press. In 1856 he came to St. Paul, where he was engaged in law practice and later in transactions of real estate, taking a prominent part in the development of the city. He died December 7th, 1890. (See Andrews' History, Part II, pages 137-8, with portrait in Part I, p. 338.)

GEORGE AUGUSTUS HAMILTON (1867) was born in Worcester, Mass., March 25th, 1822. After graduation from the grammar school at the age of fourteen years, he was employed successively in surveying, as an accountant, and as express agent, in Worcester; and later was engaged as assistant in the Boston offices of the superintendent and treasurer of the Boston and Worcester railroad. In 1854 he removed to Freeport, Ill., as paymaster of the Illinois Central railroad company. The next year he removed to Galena, Ill., as agent of the Galena, Dunleith and St. Paul Packet Company. In 1864 he began to reside in St. Paul, which was ever afterward his home, and dur