Horace H. Lurton, 1910-1914

HORACE H. LURTON was born in Newport, Kentucky, on February 26, 1844, and raised in Clarksville, Tennessee. He attended the University of Chicago in 1860 but joined the Confederate Army at the outbreak of the Civil War. Captured by Union soldiers, he soon escaped, but was recaptured and released from prison just before the War ended. Lurton resumed his studies and was graduated from Cumberland University Law School in 1867. He returned to Clarksville and began the practice of law. In 1875, at the age of thirty-one, he was appointed by the Governor of Tennessee to the Sixth Chancery Division of Tennessee and became the youngest Chancellor in the history of the state. He resigned after three years and resumed his law practice. Lurton was elected to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1886, and became its Chief Judge in 1893. Later that year, President Grover Cleveland appointed Lurton to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where he served for sixteen years. President William H. Taft nominated Lurton to the Supreme Court of the United States on December 13, 1909. The Senate confirmed the appointment on December 20, 1909. Lurton served on the Supreme Court for four years. He died on July 12, 1914, at the age of seventy.