Denver-Pueblo County CO Archives Obituaries.....Thatcher, Henry Calvin March 20, 1884
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Melba Deuprey noodlestheclown@comcast.net December 8, 2006, 2:39 pm

The Colorado Prospector Nov. 1927
First State Supreme Court Justice

[photo]
Henry Calvin Thatcher
First Chief Justice of Colorado Henry Thatcher found his niche in the legal 
profession.  A widely known and respected jurist, Judge Thatcher served as 
chief justice of Colorado from 1876 to 1880 retiring from the bench to practice 
law in the Pueblo area.

3/21/1884 - Special Dispatch to the Tribune, Pueblo - March 20 -
	As the Tribune readers are aware, Judge Henry C. Thatcher has been 
lying at San Francisco quite sick for the past week.  This morning news was 
received that he had breathed his last at 5:35 a.m. of Bright's disease of the 
kidneys.
	Judge Thatcher and wife, and a party of friends left Pueblo for a visit 
to Southern California about March 1.  The Judge was apparently in excellent 
health and spirits, but it was known to his intimate friends that he had been 
suffering from kidney complaint.  Arriving at Los Angeles, several days were 
spent there, but the weather being so damp and disagreeable a steamer was 
boarded for San Francisco on the 9th of March, and at noon the following day 
the deceased was seized with convulsions, which continued for several hours.  
There was no physician on board, but one was procured at Port Hatford, where 
the boat touched, and the journey was continued to San Francisco.  The 
afflicted man never rallied from the attack and sank rapidly until death 
relieved him.
	Henry Calvin Thatcher was born in Perry county Pennsylvania, on April 
21, 1842.
	He was educated at the Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, graduating in 1864.  The succeeding year he read law at 
Hollidaysburg, Penn.  In the spring of 1866 he graduated in the law department 
of the Albany University, New York, and in the fall of the same year he came to 
Colorado, and at once located at Pueblo.  Here he commenced the practice of his 
profession, which he has actively continued since, with the exception of three 
year's service as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Colorado.  In 1879 he 
was appointed United States Attorney of Colorado by president Grant, the duties 
of which office he discharged for more than a year, when he resigned.
	He was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention from this 
district on a non partisan ticket, and in 1876 he was nominated by the 
Republicans as one of the candidates for the Supreme Court of Colorado, to 
which he was elected, and in drawing lots for terms, Judge Thatcher drew the 
short term - three years - thus becoming Chief Justice.  At the conclusion of 
his term of office he returned to Pueblo and resumed the practice of his 
profession as a member of the firm of Thatcher & Gast, which formed in 1874.  
At the time of his death he was the solicitor of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa 
Fe road for the State of Colorado.
	Judge Thatcher was first married in 1869, his wife dying in 1875.  The 
fruit of the first marriage was a son, now about 12 years old, who survives his 
father.  In 1879 the deceased was married to his present wife, the fruit of the 
second marriage being also a son, now, in his third year.  The father and 
mother of the deceased are still living at Martinsburg, Pennsylvania.
	Deceased was recognized as one of the most influential citizens of 
Southern Colorado, and was universally acknowledged to stand at the head of the 
Pueblo bar.  His death is regarded by all who knew him and is regretted as a 
public calamity to Pueblo, of which he was one of the most progressive and 
enterprising citizens.

Additional Comments:
U.S. Attorney
First Colorado Supreme Court Justice

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