James Marshall Lawson Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1467-1469 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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	JAMES MARSHALL LAWSON, who is engaged in the practice of the legal 
profession in the city of Aberdeen, is a native of the Old Dominion 
state, having been born in Virginia, on the 5th of January, 1863, his 
father, Rev. Orr Lawson, D. D., having been at that time a missionary in 
that section, in the interests of the Presbyterian church, and was 
compelled to leave the south a few weeks after the birth of the subject 
by reason of the animosity of the southern people, the war of the 
Rebellion being then in progress. The father of the subject was born in 
western Pennsylvania, as was also his wife, whose maiden name was Mary 
E. Marshall, and to the old Keystone state they returned upon leaving 
Virginia. Rev. Orr Lawson has long been a distinguished clergyman of the 
Presbyterian church and is now residing in Iowa, having attained the 
venerable age of seventy-five years, while his noble and devoted wife 
was summoned into eternal rest on the 17th of February, 1903, at the age 
of sixty-six years. Of their four children, two are yet living. The 
original progenitors of the Lawson and Marshall families in America came 
from the north of Ireland and the north of England in the colonial days, 
and both settled in western Pennsylvania, while representatives of the 
families did valiant service in the cause of independence during the war 
of the Revolution. 

	James M. Lawson passed his boyhood days in Pennsylvania, where he 
secured his early educational discipline in the public schools. At the 
age of twenty years he was matriculated in Princeton University, where 
he was graduated as a member of the class of 1884, receiving the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts. He then entered the law department of the 
University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was graduated in 1886. 
Shortly after his graduation in law he came to Aberdeen, South Dakota, 
where he exposed his professional "shingle" in July, 1886, and made 
ready for the practice of law. He was soon established in a satisfactory 
business, while he is now one of the leading members of the bar of this 
section, retaining a representative clientage, and having had to do with 
much important litigation in the state federal courts, his prestige and 
precedence being the diametrical result of the proper application of his 
energies and abilities. He is financially interested in farming, and in 
mining developments in the Black Hills, and his success in temporal 
affairs has been of no equivocal order. In 1884-5 Mr. Lawson was a 
private in the Washington Artillery of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the 
same being at the time a portion of the Fourth Regiment of the 
Pennsylvania State Guard. This company has had a long and distinguished 
history, having had an uninterrupted military existence since the war of 
1812. It was in General Scott's army of occupation in the city of Mexico 
in 1847, and was one of the first five companies to volunteer for 
service in the Civil war under President Lincoln's first call, later 
receiving the thanks of congress for its prompt response to this exigent 
call. These five companies were in the city of Washington twenty-four 
hours in advance of all other troops. They passed through the city of 
Baltimore the day before the Sixth Massachusetts arrived there, and one 
of their men was seriously injured in a conflict with a mob of southern 
sympathizers, this being the first blood shed incidental to the great 
internecine conflict which followed. All five companies were from 
Pennsylvania, and served from Bull Run to Appomattox. The Washington 
Artillery was also with General Miles in Porto Rico during the late 
Spanish-American war. 

	Mr. Lawson has ever given an uncompromising allegiance to the 
Republican party, and he is one of its leaders in the state. In 1893 he 
was speaker of the house of representatives, during the third general 
assembly of the new commonwealth, and since 1899 he has served 
continuously as the representative of the thirty-third senatorial 
district in the state senate, in which he has been an influential and 
valued worker, having been chairman of the judiciary committee during 
the sessions of 1899 and 1903, and chairman of the apportionment 
committee in 1901, while he has also held membership in other important 
circumstances of the senate. In 1899 he introduced and urged forward to 
enactment the bill establishing the Northern Normal and Industrial 
School at Aberdeen, and he has been consistently called the father of 
this excellent and valuable institution. In 1893 while a member of the 
house, he introduced the bill providing for the state geological survey. 
Senator Lawson's religious faith is that of the Presbyterian church, in 
which he was reared, and fraternally he is identified with the Masonic 
order, in which he has attained the chivalric degrees, being a member of 
Damascus Commandery, No. 10, Knights Templar, in Aberdeen. The Senator 
remains a bachelor. He has a distinctive predilection for out-door life 
and sports afield and afloat, while he has announced as his fad or 
special fancy that of tree culture.