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JOSEPH McKENNA


Joseph McKenna, of San Francisco, Cal., Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., August 10, 1843; attended St. Joseph's College of his native city until 1855, when he removed with his parents to Benicia, Cal., where he continued his education at the public schools and the Collegiate Institute, at which he studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1865; was twice elected district attorney for Solano County, beginning in March, 1866; served in the lower house of the legislature in the sessions of 1875 and 1876; was elected to the Forty-Ninth, Fiftieth, Fifty-First, and Fifty-Second Congresses; resigned from the last-named Congress to accept the position of United States circuit judge, to which he was appointed by President Harrison in 1893; resigned that office to accept the position of Attorney-General of the United States in the cabinet of President McKinley; was appointed, December 16, 1897, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Field, retired, and took his seat January 26, 1898.