Edmund W. Wells

Edmund W. Wells

Edmund William Wells (born February 14, 1846 in Lancaster , Ohio , † July 4, 1938 in San Diego , California ) was an American lawyer , businessman and politician .

Career

Edmund William Wells, son of Mary Louise Arnold and Edmund William Wells, was born in Fairfield County, Ohio in 1846 . The first years of his life were overshadowed by the Mexican-American War . The family moved in 1852 to Iowa and settled there in Oskaloosa ( Mahaska County ) down. Wells attended the local public schools. He was 16 years old when his mother died. The civil war had only started a year earlier. Wells traveled to Pike's Peak Country with his father to prospect for gold. To come up with the hope of prosperity they moved south toward Arizona Territory and reached on 6 July 1864 Prescott ( Yavapai County ). The governor of Arizona Territory John Noble Goodwin appointed senior Wells for Alcalde . Wells Jr. served in a number of salaried positions during this time, including the 1st and 2nd Arizona Territorial Legislature, the US Army , Chief Justice William F. Turner, and the Yavapai County Council. In 1870 Wells was elected a county recorder . He also served as the United States Commissioner from 1871 to 1875 .

Wells married Rosiland Gertrude Banghart on October 5, 1869. The couple had six children, one of whom died in childhood. Through his marriage, he became the brother-in-law of newspaper journalist John H. Marion and Arizona Territory Governor Oakes Murphy . The Wells were the co-founders of Prescott's First Church of Christ, Science.

Wells studied law under Judge William F. Turner. He was admitted to the bar in 1873. Wells was elected Yavapai County Attorney in 1875. In the same year he started a law practice with attorney John A. Rush . Both operated the legal practice depending on the source until 1887 or 1889, as Wells developed an eye disease. This forced Wells to give up the legal practice and to quit his practice as a lawyer.

In addition to his legal practice, Wells had cattle, mining, and real estate businesses. In 1882 he acquired a stake in the Bank of Arizona - a company of which Wells was vice president from 1883 to 1911 and president from 1911 to 1928. The size of his business interests was so large that he was occasionally called "Arizona's first millionaire". At the time Arizona became a state , he believed he was the richest man in Arizona.

In 1879 Wells was elected to the Council ( House of Lords ) of the 10th Arizona Territorial Legislature. He served a second term on the council in 1883 when he was elected to the 12th Arizona Territorial Legislature. Wells was appointed Assistant Attorney General during President Chester A. Arthur's administration . In 1887 he sat on a committee that revised the territorial statutes.

President Benjamin Harrison appointed him associate judge of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court on March 6, 1891 for the newly created 4th District . His nomination was made by US Senator from Iowa William B. Allison , Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Johnson Field , the former governors of Arizona Territory Richard Cunningham McCormick , Anson Safford and Lewis Wolfley , the Arizona territorial Justices Charles GW French and William W. Porter, the Arizona territorial Secretary John J. Gosper, and the then acting governor of Arizona Territory Oakes Murphy supported . Its judicial district included Apache County , Coconino County , Mohave County, and Yavapai County.

During his tenure as a judge, Wells ruled over a dozen or so cases that were included in the Arizona Reports . In this context he ruled at Yavapai County v. O'Neill, 3 Arizona 363, (1892) that Sheriff Buckey O'Neill did not have to make an arrest to get mileage expenses , but only had to make an effort in good faith. At Reilly v. Atchison, 4 Arizona 72, (1892) upheld the appeals court's judgment. In doing so, the attorney claimed that an error removed between pages 13 and 18 in minutes of the negotiation was not specific enough to indicate an error had occurred. Wells submitted his resignation on March 6, 1893. He gave the reason: "business matters require my attention." He also asked for a replacement as soon as possible.

After serving as a judge, Wells was appointed the new Attorney General of the Arizona Territory by Governor Alexander Oswald Brodie - a post he held from August 2, 1902 to November 14, 1904. In 1910 he was elected a Yavapai County MP to the Arizona Constituent Assembly . At the beginning of the Constituent Assembly, Wells was nominated for President of the Assembly by a Republican colleague, but did not win the election that followed. Instead, he served on the Committee on Style, Revision, and Compilation and helped chairman, Michael Cunniff, finalize the Arizona state constitution. Despite his extensive work on the state constitution, Wells ultimately refused to sign it. In his opinion it contained radical components.

Wells won the Republican nomination for election to the first governor of Arizona. In the election that took place on December 12, 1911, however, he was defeated by the Democratic incumbent George WP Hunt with 11,123 and 9,166 votes. From 1918 to 1925 Wells served as regent at the University of Arizona .

After he left his post at the Bank of Arizona, Wells worked as a writer. He wrote Argonaut Tales, a book about his early experiences. He donated the royalties to the Prescott branch of the Boy Scouts of America . His wife died on May 14, 1922. He then lived with one of his children in Phoenix, Arizona, before moving to San Diego, California to live with his other children. Wells died there in 1938 and was then interred in the family mausoleum at Mountain View Cemetery in Prescott.

literature

• John S. Goff: Arizona Territorial Officials. Volume I: The Supreme Court Justices 1863-1912. Black Mountain Press, Cave Creek, Arizona 1975, OCLC 1622668 .
• Jay J. Wagoner: Arizona Territory 1863-1912: A Political history. University of Arizona Press, Tucson 1970, ISBN 0-8165-0176-9

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Goff, 1975, p. 135
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Goff, 1975, p. 137
3. ^ Chapter I. The Fourth Legislature
4. ↑ Goff, 1975, pp. 134f.
5. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Goff, 1975, p. 136
6. ↑ Wagoner, 1970, p. 463
7. ^ Wagoner, 1970, p. 465
8. ↑ Wagoner, 1970, p. 470
9. ↑ Wagoner, 1970, p. 485