Lake County FlArchives Biographies.....McNamee, Robert October 16, 1862 - 
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Nancy Rayburn http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006128 September 8, 2015, 10:38 pm

Source: Vol. II  pg.68  The Lewis Publishing Co. 1923
Author: History of Florida, Past and Present

        Hon. ROBERT McNAMEE. A resident of Florida upwards of forty years, Hon.
ROBERT McNAMEE was admitted to the bar thirty years ago and has gained enviable
success in his profession and in public affairs. He is a former speaker of the
House in the State Legislature, and for some years also conducted a successful
publication in Jacksonville.
	He was born at Easton, Pennsylvania, October 16, 1862, son of CORNELIUS 
and EMMA McNAMEE. His father, a native of Ireland, as a young man located in
Pennsylvania. He became a merchant, and died in 1865. After his death his widow
and her son Robert removed to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where her people lived.
ROBERT McNAMEE grew up at Pottsville, had a public school education, and
attended La Fayette College there. He began his apprenticeship to the trade of
machinist in the shops of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad at Pottsville,
but found the occupation too confining and arduous for his health. While
recuperating he came to Florida, and in 1885 planted an orange grove in Lake
County. His trees were frozen out two years later. During the next five years
while serving as a telegraph operator with the Florida Southern Railroad he
studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1892, and from that year until 1897
practiced at Leesburg in Lake County. He also spent one year at Jacksonville
during that period of his life. For about ten years Mr. McNamee was an active
member of the Tampa bar, and had a large practice as a lawyer there from 1900
until 1911.
	His interest in public affairs, his abilities as an orator and public
leader, brought him attention in politics, and in 1898 he was elected a member
of the State Legislature from Lake County. He was chosen speaker of the House
of Representatives in 1899, and it is probable that he was the youngest man
ever to hold this position. In 1903 he was again elected a member of the
General Assembly from Hillsboro County. Mr. McNamee is a democrat, casting his
first vote for Cleveland in 1884, and for a number of years attended as a
delegate nearly all the State and Congressional Conventions. He served as
chairman of the Lake County Executive Committee and as a member of the State
Executive Committee.
	Mr. McNamee was owner and publisher of the Dixie, a weekly magazine and 
a newspaper, from 1913 to 1918. Fraternally he is a member of the Masonic 
Order, Knights of Pythias, Woodmen of the World, Elks and Odd Fellows and the 
College fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon. On November 17, 1888, at New Orleans, 
Louisiana, he married Miss ALICE SAUVE, of an old French Creole family of that 
city. They have one son, WILLIAM HOCKER

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