Augustus Schoonmaker

Augustus Schoonmaker

Augustus Schoonmaker junior (born March 2, 1828 in Rochester , New York , † April 9, 1894 in Kingston , New York) was an American lawyer and politician .

Career

Augustus Schoonmaker junior's youth were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the subsequent Mexican-American War . He took an early interest in politics and gave campaign speeches as early as 1848. Schoonmaker became a teacher in 1848 and a school inspector in 1851 in Ulster County . He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1853. He initially worked as a paralegal in Jacob Hardenburgh's law firm in Kingston (New York). They were later partners in a joint law firm until 1872.

Schoonmaker was a county judge in Ulster County from 1864 to 1872. The first years of his tenure as judge were overshadowed by the civil war. From 1876 to 1877 he was a member of the New York State Assembly for the 14th District . In elections in 1877, he became a Democrat to the Attorney General elected by New York - a post he held from 1878 to 1879. In his re-election in 1879, he suffered a defeat to the Republican Hamilton Ward senior . In 1881 he ran for a judge's post at the New York Court of Appeals . The Republican Francis Miles Finch went out of the race as the winner. From 1883 to 1887 he was a member of the New York Board of Civil Service Commission. The President and friend Grover Cleveland appointed him on 22 March 1887 as one of the five founding members of the independent regulatory Interstate Commerce Commission . He took his oath of office on March 31, 1887. The Senate was confirmed on January 19, 1888. The term of office was limited to December 31, 1890. Martin Augustine Knapp was his successor .

Then Schoonmaker worked again as a lawyer and died in 1894 of complications from tonsillitis .

literature

• Augustus Schoonmaker , The New York Times, April 11, 1894
• Clarence Altha Miller: The lives of the Interstate Commerce Commissioners and the Commission's secretaries. Washington, DC 1946 ( hathitrust.org [accessed June 20, 2019]).