Salmon Portland Chase, son of Ithamar and Janette (Ralston) Chase…

Photograph of Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, taken between 1860 and 1875, Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington D.C.

was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, 13 Jan 1808.  He died in New York City, 7 May 1873.

His father was a farmer, and in 1815 they moved from Cornish to Keene, NH.  With his wife and eleven children he started a new home there, and engaged in the manufacture of glass, but became bankrupt.  Salmon attended the district schools, and later in Worthington Ohio, under his uncle Bishop Philander Chase’s care and tutelage. When his uncle moved to Cincinnati in 1822 as president of Cincinnati College, Salmon joined him and entered that school.  In 1823 Salmon returned to his mother’s home in Keene NH, taught school at Royalton VT, and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1826.  He moved to the District of Columbia where he continued to teach, and he was admitted to the bar there in 1829, and also the bar in Ohio.  He published a lengthy and complex book, the “Statues of Ohio,” after which he gained many prestigious clients. He was a member of the Anti-Slavery Society, defending re-captured slaves. In 1849 he was elected United States Senator. Continue reading →