Edward Teare Taubman Biography


	This biography appears on pages 841-843 in "History of South 
	Dakota" by Doane Robinson, Vol. I (1904) and was scanned, 
	OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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	EDWARD TEARE TAUBMAN was born December 18, 1853, near the city of 
Cleveland, Ohio, where his parents, Edward and Margaret (Teare) 
Taubman, natives of the Isle of Man, settled the preceding fall. The 
year of his birth witnessed the family's emigration to Iowa, in which 
state he spent his childhood and youth. growing to young manhood near 
the town of Maquoketa, where he also received his preliminary education 
by attending the public schools. The training thus received was 
supplemented later by a business course in the Clinton Commercial 
College, after which he followed teaching for four or five years, 
during which time he also taught classes in penmanship at different 
places. While thus engaged Mr. Taubman began the study of law under the 
direction of Cotton & Wolfe, leading attorneys of DeWitt, Iowa, and in 
September, 1878, was admitted to the Clinton county bar, immediately 
following which he began practicing his profession in the town of 
Delmar. After spending some months at that place, he moved to Spencer, 
the same state, where he practiced until 1883, in March of which year 
he closed up his business in Iowa and came to South Dakota, locating at 
Aberdeen, where he opened an office and in due season secured a liberal 
share of patronage. Twenty years ago and more Aberdeen appears to have 
been a mecca for lawyers, Mr. Taubman having been the seventy-fourth 
legal light to swing his shingle to the breeze, of which large number 
but five besides the subject are in active practice in the city at the 
present time, namely, C. N. Harris, John H. Perry, C. J. Hute, A. W. 
Campbell and Captain 
Houser.  

	Mr. Taubman's professional career since coming west has been 
eminently successful and, as already indicated, he is now recognized 
not only as one of the leading members of the Brown county bar, but 
stands as the peer of any of his contemporaries in the northeastern 
part of the state. Thoroughly grounded in the basic principles of 
jurisprudence, he is able and patient in the preparation of his cases; 
in the trial of them, is skillful, resourceful and fertile in 
expedient. In the preparation of a case and presenting it to court or 
jury, he has few equals in discovering in advance the controlling 
points and so marshaling the testimony and handling it in argument as 
to produce the conviction that the cause of his client is just and 
ought to prevail. He is an excellent judge of human nature, remarkably 
conversant with the modes of thought on the part of jurors and with 
these and other equally admirable qualifications, notably his power as 
a public speaker, he is especially forcible and uniformly successful in 
jury trials. Since 1885 he has confined himself closely to his 
practice, which in the meanwhile has grown greatly, his services being 
retained in nearly all the leading cases in his own and neighboring 
counties, to say nothing of important business in higher courts of the 
state. In 1889 he was elected prosecuting attorney and served as such 
two years, being the last person to hold the office in Brown county 
under the territorial government and the first after the admission of 
South Dakota to statehood. Politically, Mr. Taubman is staunchly and 
uncompromisingly Republican, and has always stood firmly for the 
traditional principles of the party, remaining true to the same when 
the majority of the Republicans in the western states and the 
territories were deluded and carried away by the popular fallacy of 
free silver. Believing in a strong and stable currency, based upon the 
gold standard, he took issue with the plank in the platform favoring 
the ratio of sixteen to one and unlimited coinage, defended his 
position on the platform, and, through the medium of the press and 
despite the formidable opposition arrayed against him, made his 
influence felt and did much to redeem the party from the error into 
which it had been thrown under the direction of unwise leadership. 
Rather than sacrifice his honest convictions, he preferred to fight the 
battle for sound money alone, but his able arguments gained many 
adherents and he came out of the contest with the respect of his 
political foes of both parties as well as the admiration of those who 
successfully resisted all attempts to be led away by false and 
pernicious theories. Mr. Taubman has been a delegate to many 
conventions, local, district and state, and his influence in these 
bodies has had not a little to do in making of platforms, shaping the 
policy of the party and contributing to its success at the polls. He is 
nevertheless more of a lawyer than a politician and, being devoted to 
his profession, makes it paramount to every other consideration, his 
aim having always been to rise superior to mere expediency, and become 
thorough in all branches of legal knowledge and efficient in applying 
the same to practice. Mr. Taubman is one of the leading Masons of South 
Dakota, having taken all the degrees in the order up to and including 
the thirty-third, being one of a very few men in the west to reach that 
exalted station. He is an active member of the supreme council of the 
state, has attended several councils and consistories, and the high 
position in every branch of the order with which he has been honored 
attests his popularity and standing among his fellow Masons of South 
Dakota and elsewhere. As indicated above, he has taken every degree 
that can be conferred in the United States, which fact has made his 
name familiar to the brotherhood throughout the entire country and 
today there are few Masons on this side of the Atlantic more widely or 
familiarly known.  

	On June 26, 1879, Judge Taubman was united in marriage with Miss 
Margaret Kennedy, of Ohio, the ceremony being solemnized in Linn 
county, Iowa, where the bride was living at that time. Mrs. Taubman is 
an educated and cultured lady, taught school for some years, after 
graduating from an educational institution of high grade, and is an 
active and popular member of St. Mark's Episcopal church of Aberdeen, 
also belongs to the Ladies' Guild of that denomination, under the 
auspices of which she has been prominent in religious circles, not only 
in her home city, but in a number of states, especially in the east. 
She has borne her husband three children, the oldest of whom, a 
daughter by the name of Genevieve, is now a student of Cornell College, 
in the junior year; Olive T., the second, is attending the Aberdeen 
high school, and the youngest, who answers to the name of Morton 
McKinley, is also pursuing his studies in the schools of the latter 
city.