Henry T. Backus

Henry Titus Backus (born April 4, 1809 in Norwich , Connecticut , †  July 13, 1877 in Greenwood , Arizona Territory ) was an American politician . Between 1861 and 1863 he was acting lieutenant governor of the state of Michigan .

Career

Henry Backus attended public schools in his homeland. After a subsequent law degree at Yale University and his admission as a lawyer in 1833, he began to practice in Detroit from 1834 in this profession. There he worked for some time with the future governor of Michigan, William Woodbridge , whose daughter he married. Politically, he then joined the Whig Party . In 1840 he was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives; in 1850 he took part as a delegate to a constitutional convention of that state. After the dissolution of the Whigs, he joined the then-formed Republican Party in the 1850s . He served on Detroit City Council in 1860 and 1861. Since 1860 he was also a member of the Michigan Senate , whose President Pro Tempore he was.

After the death of Lieutenant Governor Joseph R. Williams , Henry Backus had to act as President Pro Tempore of the State Senate in accordance with the state constitution. This he held between June 15, 1861 and the regular end of the term in January 1863. He was Deputy to Governor Austin Blair and Chairman of the State Senate. In 1865, Backus was by President Abraham Lincoln to the judge at the Supreme Court in Arizona Territory appointed. He held this office until 1869. After that, he worked as a lawyer in Detroit again until 1877. That year he returned to what is now Arizona , where he had acquired land. He fell ill and died on July 13, 1877 in the village of Greenwood in Mohave County , which soon became a ghost town .

Web links

• Henry T. Backus in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• The Political Graveyard
• Biography at Arizona State University