Page:Autobiographies and portraits of the President, cabinet, Supreme court, and Fifty-fifth Congress (IA autobiographiesp02neal).pdf/51

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DAVID JOSIAH BREWER


David Josiah Brewer, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, June 20, 1837; is the son of Rev. Josiah Brewer and Emilia A. Field, sister of David Dudley, Cyrus W.. and Justice Stephen J. Field; his father was an early missionary to Turkey; was graduated from Yale College in 1856 and from the Albany Law School in 1858; established himself in his profession at Leavenworth, Kan., in 1859, where he resided until he removed to Washington to enter upon his present duties; in 1861 was appointed United States commissioner; from 1862 to 1865 was judge of the probate and criminal courts of Leavenworth County; from 1865 to 1869 was judge of the district court; from 1869 to 1870 was county attorney of Leavenworth; in 1870 was elected a justice of the supreme court of his State, and reëlected in 1876 and 1882; in 1884 was appointed judge of the Circuit Court of the United States for the eighth district; was appointed to his present position, to succeed Justice Stanley Matthews, deceased, in December, 1889, and was commissioned December 18, 1889.