Denver-Pueblo County CO Archives Biographies.....Teller, James Harvey 1850 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 24, 2008, 4:22 am Author: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918) JUDGE JAMES HARVEY TELLER. Judge James Harvey Teller, member of the supreme court bench of Colorado, was born in 1850 in Granger, New York, a son of John and Charlotte (Moore) Teller and a brother of the Hon. Henry M. Teller, United States senator from Colorado and secretary of the interior, and of Willard Teller, the well known lawyer of Denver. The family comes of Holland Dutch ancestry. The original William Teller settled at New Amsterdam in 1639. The family had always been represented in New York until the branch to which the late United States Senator Teller and Judge James H. Teller belonged moved to the west. With the establishment of the family in the Mississippi valley Judge Teller became a pupil in the schools of Morrison, Illinois, and afterwards attended Oberlin College, where he won the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1874. Later he was elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa, an honor secured only through scholarship. On the 3d of May, 1875, Judge Teller was married to Miss Frances L. Wheelock, a direct descendant of Eleazor Wheelock, the first president of Dartmouth College. The children of Judge and Mrs. Teller are: Charlotte, the wife of Gilbert Hirsch, of New York; Addison Ralph, now engaged in farming in Jefferson county; and Dorothy, the wife of Ben Edgerton, of Denver. Judge Teller began the practice of law in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1876 and in 1882 removed to Dakota Territory, where for seven months he served as one of three commissioners, in making a treaty with the Sioux Indians. In 1883 he was appointed secretary of Dakota Territory and occupied that position until 1886. After remaining at Yankton for a brief time following his retirement from office he took up his abode in Chicago and remained a practitioner at the bar of that city until 1902. While there residing he was in 1896 a candidate for congress against James Mann and in the election contest polled a thousand more votes than William Jennings Bryan or John P. Altgeld, the presidential and gubernatorial candidates respectively. The year 1902 witnessed Judge Teller's arrival in Colorado, at which time he opened a law office in Pueblo, where he remained in active practice until 1906. He then came to Denver and occupied the position of assistant attorney general from 1909 until 1911. He afterward formed a partnership for the private practice of law with former Attorney General John Barnett. He was called upon for judicial service on the 30th of November, 1911, when appointed district judge to succeed the late Judge Bliss, of Denver. In the bar primary held the following summer he was one of the five candidates named for the district bench, standing second in the poll of the lawyers of the city. For the election he was placed on the republican, democratic, progressive, citizens' and prohibition tickets and naturally ran far ahead of anyone else on his party's ticket. He served on the district bench until 1914 and was then named as the democratic candidate for the supreme court, his opponent being former Supreme Court Judge John Campbell, whom he defeated by approximately twenty thousand votes. One of his famous decisions was that which established the constitutionality of the commission form of government for Denver. Mayor Arnold and his associates, despite promises to give way to newly elected commissioners, had declined to give up the offices. Another famous decision which he rendered was that compelling the city to pay the legally elected water commission, thus definitely fixing its status. Judge Teller ranks among the best judicial minds ever placed upon the supreme bench of the state. His popularity with the masses is due to the conviction that he stands in the highest tribunal of the state as their protector, a zealous guardian of popular rights. His decisions are marked by a rare clearness of vision. He is quick to detect and expose subterfuge and there is always manifest in him an ardent desire to be strictly fair and impartial. Additional Comments: Extracted from: HISTORY OF COLORADO ILLUSTRATED VOLUME III CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1918 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/denver/bios/teller112nbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cofiles/ File size: 4.7 Kb