Joseph McCormick (lawyer)

Joseph McCormick (* 1814 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † 1879 in California ) was an American lawyer and politician ( Democratic Party ). He was Attorney General of Ohio from 1851 to 1852 .

Career

Joseph McCormick, the only child of Margaret Ellison and Adam McCormick, was born in Cincinnati, Hamilton County , during the British-American War . He spent his childhood in Cincinnati and West Union ( Adams County ). McCormick may have attended Marietta College in Washington County . In 1831 and 1832 he was a shopkeeper in Pine Grove Furnace . He studied with Nelson Barrere Jura and received in 1835 admitted to the bar. He was based in Portsmouth ( Scioto County ) for a few months and then lived in Cincinnati until 1838. The following years were overshadowed by the economic crisis of 1837 and the Mexican-American War . In 1838 he became a prosecuting attorney for Adams County. He was reappointed public prosecutor in 1843 and then elected to the same office - a post he held until 1845. During that time, on May 20, 1840, he married Elizabeth Smith, sister of Judge John M. Smith of West Union. The couple had two sons and a daughter, but only Adam Ellison, who was born in 1843, reached adulthood. Joseph McCormick was an alcoholic. When his father died in 1849, he left him a large estate. In his will, however, he decreed that his son and his two grandchildren, who were still alive at the time, only had a right to live and use there for life. The property was to remain in the hands of a trustee until Joseph changed his drinking habits. Only after the death of Joseph McCormick did the property come into the possession of his only living son. McCormick attended the Second Ohio Constituent Assembly for Adams County in 1850 . On May 5, 1851, Governor Reuben Wood appointed him second Attorney General of Ohio for the remainder of Henry Stanbery's tenure . McCormick held the office for about seven months until he was succeeded by George E. Pugh , which was elected under the new constitution. McCormick moved to California around 1857, where he died in 1879. His wife remained in Manchester (Adams County), where she died in 1872.

literature

• Nelson Wiley Evans and Emmons B. Stivers: A History of Adams County, Ohio , Emmons B. Stivers, 1900, p. 204