Edwin Grant Coleman Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1542-1543 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. II (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	EDWIN GRANT COLEMAN, of Flandreau, one of the able and 
representative members of the bar of the state and at the present time 
serving as state's attorney for Moody county, is a native of the state 
of Illinois, having been horn in Pilot Grove township. Hancock county, 
on the 6th of March, 1867, a son of Charles B. and Nancy (Huckins) 
Coleman, who are now deceased, the father having been a farmer by 
vocation. Both the parental and maternal grandparents of the subject 
were numbered among the earliest settlers in Hancock county, whither the 
former came from Zanesville, Ohio, and the latter from Concord, New 
Hampshire, while both families trace the ancestral line back to staunch 
Puritan stock, having been founacd in New England in the early colonial 
epoch. 

	The subject received excellent educational advantages in his early 
youth. After completing tile curriculum of the common schools he 
continued his studies in turn in the La Harpe Academy and the Giddings 
Academy, at La Harpe, Illinois; later attended the Northern Illinois 
Normal School, at Dixon; and in 1889 was matriculated in the law 
department of the University of Michigan, where he completed the 
prescribed course and was graduated on the 28th of June, 1892, having 
been admitted to the bar of that state on the 3d of the same month. He 
was admitted to practice before the supreme court of Illinois on the 
11th of June, of the same year: and on the 15th of June, 1898, was 
admitted to practice before the supreme court of South Dakota. In the 
autumn of 1892 Mr. Coleman formed a professional alliance with J. F. 
Hamilton and engaged in the practice of law in Galesburg, Illinois, 
where he remained until the spring of 1898 when he came to South Dakota, 
locating in Flandreau on the 28th of April and here opening an office. 
He has since been actively and successfully engaged in the practice of 
his profession here, retaining a representative clientage and being 
known as a safe and conservative counselor and as an able trial lawyer. 
On the 1st of November, 1901, he entered into a professional partnership 
with John Q. Adams, under the firm name of Adams & Coleman, and this 
association has since obtained, the firm holding a very high standing at 
the bar of the state and having the confidence and esteem of the 
community. 

	In politics Mr. Coleman is a staunch advocate of the principles and 
policies of the Republican party, in whose cause he takes an active 
interest, and he has served since 1902 as state's attorney for Moody 
county, proving a discriminating and the faithful prosecutor, while for 
the past five years he has been a member of the village council of 
Flandreau. He was for six years a member of the Sixth Regiment of the 
Illinois National Guard, with which he was in active service during the 
labor strikes in Chicago, Pekin, Spring Valley and other places in the 
state, in 1894. Fraternally he is a Master Mason and also identified 
with the Modern Woodmen of America, the Order of the Eastern Star, the 
Royal Neighbors, the Knights of the Maccabees and the Benevolent and 
Protective Order of Elks. 

	On the 12th of June, 1902, Mr. Coleman was united in marriage to 
Miss Lucy M. Vance, a daughter of Nathan Vance, of Flandreau, she being 
a native of Minnesota and at the time of her marriage with Mr. Coleman a 
resident of Flandreau, North Dakota.