Carbon County WY Archives Biographies.....Chatterton, Fenimore 1860 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 July 20, 2008, 10:02 pm

Author: Bowen & Co. (1903)

HON. FENIMORE CHATTERTON.

   This honored gentleman, who fills with distinction the high office of
secretary of state of Wyoming, and by reason of the lamented death of Governor
Richards is now the acting governor, is a typical representative of the choicest
element of New England manhood, although not of New England birth. He comes of
an old Vermont family, the lineage of which goes back to an early period of that
commonwealth. He inherits in a marked degree the sterling mental characteristics
for which his ancestors were long noted. Rev. Germon Chatterton, the father, was
a native of the Green Mountain state and for many years filled the chair of
literature in Middlebury College. Later, in Oswego, N. Y., he practiced law for
some years, subsequently retiring from that profession for the purpose of
pursuing the theological course in the Auburn Theological Seminary, one of the
leading Presbyterian educational institutions of America. He became an able and
scholarly divine, filled a number of prominent pulpits and earned an enviable
reputation as a leader of religious thought in his denomination. A man of wide
culture and varied attainments, he impressed his personality on every community
in which he lived, winning a permanent place in religious, educational and
professional circles. After a long and useful career, he resigned his
professorship, relinquished ministerial labors and is now living a life of
honored retirement in the state of New York. Leveret Chatterton, the paternal
grandfather of the one of whom we now write, was born in Rutland county, Vt.,
and passed all his life within the confines of his native state, he served with
distinction in the War of 1812 and lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1874. Ama
Mazumon, wife of Germon Chatterton and mother of the Hon. Fenimore Chatterton,
was also of Vermont birth and died in 1867. Fenimore Chatterton was born in the
city of Oswego, N. Y., on July 21, 1860. When he was but a young child his
parents moved to Washington. D. C. in which city he spent the years of his
childhood and youth and also received his preliminary discipline in the schools
of the national capital. The training thus acquired was supplemented by a full
course in Columbiana college, from which institution he was graduated with an
honorable record as a student. Finishing his intellectual education, Mr.
Chatterton took up the study of law in Washington. D. C. but was not admitted to
the bar until some years later, breaking off his professional research in 1878
for the purpose of seeking his fortune in the West. In that year he came to
Wyoming and accepted a clerkship in the poststore at Ft. Steele, in which
capacity he continued until purchasing the stock and becoming sole proprietor
some time later. He conducted the business with encouraging financial results
until 1888, when he disposed of the establishment to enter upon his duties as
probate judge and treasurer of Carbon county, to which offices he was elected in
the fall of that year. Mr. Chatterton discharged his dual functions until 1890,
when he resigned both positions and took his seat as senator in the first
session of the State Senate. He served with credit in that body, was a careful
and conservative member and his name was associated with the important
committees, rendering much valuable service to his constituents and to the
state. He served three terms in the Senate and his career as a lawmaker fully
met the high expectations of the people, who honored him with this signal mark
of their confidence and favor. Actuated by a laudable desire to strengthen and
enlarge his legal knowledge, Mr. Chatterton in 1892 entered the law department
of Michigan University, from which he was graduated the following year. Meantime
he had been admitted to the bar and, opening an office at Rawlins, he soon won a
respectable standing among the successful practitioners of Carbon county.
Shortly after his election as secretary of state he associated with himself L.
E. Armstrong in this legal practice and the partnership thus constituted still
exists, and it is needless to say that this firm takes high rank at the bar of
the state. It is not mere partisan praise or adulation, nor is it overestimation
to say that Mr. Chatterton is at the present time one of the most scholarly and
best-equipped barristers of the bar where he practices. As a lawyer, he is
sound, clear-minded and well-disciplined, intellectually and professionally. The
limitations which are imposed by Federal powers are well understood by him. With
the long line of decisions from Marshall down to Fuller, by which the
constitutions have been expounded, he is familiar as are all thoroughly skilled
lawyers. He is at home in all the departments of the law, from the minutiae of
general practice to the greater topics, wherein are involved consideration of
the ethics and philosophy of jurisprudence and the higher concerns of public
policy. But he is not learned in the law alone, for be has studied long and
carefully the subjects that are to the man of affairs of the greatest import.
the questions of finance and political economy, in which he has kept abreast of
the best thinking men of the state. In the management of cases he is actuated by
the best interest of his client, being felicitous and clear in statement of
legal principles involved, forcible and thoroughly earnest in argument, full of
vigor of conviction, never abusive of adversaries, always imbued with becoming
courtesy, yet a foe worthy the steel of the ablest opponent. From 1894 to 1896
Mr. Chatterton served as county attorney and in 1898 was elected by the
Republican party of Wyoming to the high office he now holds, secretary of state.
His previous intellectual discipline in one of the most noted educational
institutions in the land, and his training in the intricacies of the law, both,
combined with a natural aptitude for the undertakings requiring abilities of a
high order, have peculiarly fitted Mr. Chatterton for the very important station
with which his fellow citizens have so honored him. His administration of the
office has demonstrated the wisdom of his election and it is safe to affirm that
the state has never had a more capable, obliging or popular public servant. For
some years past Mr. Chatterton, with others, has been largely interested in the
mining industry. He was instrumental in organizing what is now known as the
Kurtz & Chatterton mine in the Grand Encampment district and about 1900 he
organized the Kurtz and Chatterton Mining Co., and erected works for the
development of a large area of valuable mineral property. He has also interests
in various other mining enterprises and has become one of the leaders of that
industry in Carbon county and elsewhere. In politics Mr. Chatterton yields an
unwavering allegiance to the Republican party and has served as chairman of the
central committee of his county at different times. He is public spirited in all
which the term implies and has done much to advance the material and industrial
interests of both his county and state. All enterprises having for their object
the intellectual and moral good of the body politic find in him a zealous friend
and a liberal patron and he keeps in close touch with the trend of thought on
all the great questions of the day, national and international. In a fraternal
way he has advanced to high degrees in the ancient and noble order of
Freemasonry, having attained the Thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. From
1894 to 1896 he was the grand master of the Grand Lodge of Wyoming, in addition
to which exalted position he served as potentate of the Mystic Shrine and as
deputy grand commander of the Grand Commandery of Wyoming: Mr. Chatterton's
fidelity to the high duties of citizenship has been signally manifested in every
relation of life in which he has been placed. His is a broad mentality,.his a
strong, loyal, and sympathetic nature, and his aim has been unmistakably to live
as nearly to his possibilities and ideals as has been in his power to do, both
in private and public life. Such men deserve much more than a modicum of respect
and honor, and that these have not been denied to Mr. Chatterton is evident to
one who has marked even in a cursory way the leading facts in this brief record.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

PROGRESSIVE MEN OF THE STATE OF WYOMING

ILLUSTRATED

A people who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors, will
never achieve anything worthy to he remembered with pride by remote
generations.—.MACAULAY.

CHICAGO, ILL.
A. W. BOWEN &CO.
PUBLISHERS AND ENGRAVERS
1903


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