Biographical Sketches:  JAMES A. FREAR


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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. State Officers. Secretary of State, p. 1121.

JAMES A. FREAR (Rep.) was born at Hudson, Wis., Oct. 24, 1861. Was
attending Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1878, when
with his parents he moved to Washington, D.C. Served five years in the
U.S. Signal Corps at Fort Myer, Va., Indianapolis and Washington, in
1884. He was admitted to the bar of the supreme court, District of
Columbia, the same year and then returned to Hudson, entering the
practice of law in that city. Has held different city offices,
including city attorney for several years. He was appointed district
attorney for St. Croix county by Governor Upham in April 1896, and was
elected for three consecutive terms thereafter. He was appointed on
the staff of the governor in 1901 and elected to the assembly in 1902,
and to the state senate in 1904. He was appointed chairman of the
senate investigation committee on state insurance March 9th, 1905, and
at the same session was chosen a member of the Wisconsin Insurance
Investigation committee. He served as chairman of both committees
during the year 1906. September 4th of that year he was nominated at
the primaries for Secretary of State and was elected to that office in
November, receiving 178,818 votes, against 100,194 for Clarence J.
Noel (Dem.), 24,427 for Chas. V. Schmidt (Soc. Dem.), 8,174 for John
E. Clayton (Pro.) and 468 for Albert Wang (Soc. Lab.).