Biographical Sketches: JOHN B. CASSODAY ********************************************************************* USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ File Contributed by Lori Niemuth, dawnlea@ticon.net ********************************************************************* The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin Compiled and Published under the direction of J. D. Beck, Commissioner of Labor and Industrial Statistics 1907. The Wisconsin Blue Book. VII. Biographical Sketches. Members of the Sixtieth Congress. Justices of the Supreme Court, p. 1123 JOHN B. CASSODAY, LL. D., Beloit College, 1881, and LL. D., University of Wisconsin, 1905, chief justice, was born in Herkimer County, N.Y., July 7, 1830, removing with his widowed mother to Tioga County, Pa., three years later. His early studies were pursued in the common schools, at the academies in Wellboro and Knoxville, Pa., and two years at the Alfred Academy, where he graduated. After spending one year at the Michigan University he attended the Albany Law School, afterward reading in a law office in Wellsboro, Pa. In July, 1857, he settled in Janesville, Wis., and continued actively in practice until was called to the supreme bench. He was a member of the assembly in 1865, and again in 1877, when he was elected speaker of that body. He was a delegate to the national convention at Baltimore which nominated Lincoln in 1864, and was chairman of the Wisconsin delegation to the national convention at Chicago which nominated Garfield in 1880. November 11, 1880, he was appointed by Gov. William E. Smith, a associate justice of the supreme court, a vacancy having been caused by the promotion of Associate Justice Cole to the chief justiceship to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan. He was elected associate justice in April, 1881, re-elected in April, 1889, and again in 1899, and from 1885 to 1899 was a professor in the College of Law of the University of Wisconsin, lecturing on the subject of Constitutional Law. He is the author of "Cassoday on Wills," a law text book published in 1893. In July, 1895, upon the death of Justice Orton, by virtue of his seniority in service he became chief justice, and has continued as such ever since.