VOL. XV.
No. 5.
BOSTON.
MAY, 1903.
JAMES ROOD DOOLITTLE. By DUANE MOWRY. THE history of the State of Wisconsin would be incomplete if it failed to take into account the valuable public services to it and to the country of the late James R. Doolittle. Indeed, it would be no far-fetched state ment to say that Mr. Doolittle is, essentially and preeminently, a national character; and his public Kfe and professional career extends far beyond the boundaries of his adopted State. It is doubtless true that posterity will remember him longest and best as a public servant. Yet his labors in an exacting pro fession have been scarcely less distinguished. James Rood Doolittle was born in Hamp ton, Washington County, New York, on a farm adjoining Vermont, on the west side of the Green Mountains, on the 3d day of Janu ary, 1815. When four years of age, in 1819, his father removed with his family to the then far West, and settled in the thick forests of Western New York, in the southern part of old Genesee, now Wyoming county. He at tended Geneva, now Hobart, College, New York, four years, graduating from that in stitution in 1834. Choosing the law for a profession, he was admitted to the bar in 1837. Excepting a few years spent in the study and practice of the law at Rochester, New York, and the years spent at college, Mr. Doolittle resided in Wyoming County, •where, for a time, he was district attorney, until 1851, when he removed to Racine, Wis consin. He at once commenced the practice of the law in his new home, but the following year was elected a circuit judge, and con
tinued in the discharge of the duties of the position until 1856, when he resigned, after three years' service. In 1857 he was chosen a United States Senator by the Republican legislature of Wisconsin, and was reelected to succeed himself in 1863, serving as a Sen ator two full terms, from 1857 to 1869. At the conclusion of his senatorial career Mr. Doolittle returned to his Wisconsin home to resume the practice of the law, continuing to make Racine his legal residence, but con ducting a law office in Chicago. He died at the home of one of his daughters in Provi dence, Rhode Island, on the 23d day of July, 1897, in his eighty-third year. Mr. Doolittle was yet a young man when he left his home in Western New York to try his fortunes on the western shores of Lake Miichigan. It does not appear that any great professional honors or fame had preceded him. While his practice at the bar in the Empire State had been eminently respectable and satisfactory, it had not been conspicuous. Nor was it to be expected of one so young. But he had not been in his new home by the lake long before he had been able to arouse interest in himself, so much so, that the fol lowing year he was elected to the responsible position of judge of the Circuit Court, the highest local court of record in that part of the State. He was not long a judge, but long enough to call forth warm words of appreci ation and commendation from his brethren of the bar, who characterized his administration
