Bartlett Tripp (July 15, 1839 – December 8, 1911) was a diplomat, Chief Justice of the Dakota Territory Supreme Court, first professor of the
University of South Dakota College of Law and first President of the South Dakota Bar Association.
He was also the initial consideration for
Vice President of the United States
The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice ...
by his law school classmate and best friend
William McKinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
.
Early life and education
Tripp was born in
Harmony, Maine on July 15, 1839, the son of William Tripp (1794–1875), a farmer and Methodist minister who had served in the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
; his mother was Naamah Bartlett (1798–1874), William Tripp's second wife and a sister of Mormon pioneer
Patty Bartlett Sessions
Patty Bartlett Sessions (February 4, 1795 – December 14, 1892) was an early member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). She was a plural wife to Joseph Smith and is celebrated for her work as a midwife for members of ...
. The family moved from Harmony to the nearby town of
Ripley in 1844. Bartlett Tripp entered
Colby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philant ...
in 1857, but left without graduating in 1861 to travel to
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
. On the way he visited his older half-brother
William
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
in Iowa and also visited the south-eastern part of the
Dakota Territory
The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of N ...
. In California he did some surveying, then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah (where his brother Enoch Bartlett Tripp (1823–1909), a prominent Mormon merchant, lived) and taught school (1864–65). He eventually returned to Maine to regain his health. He then attended
Albany Law School
Albany Law School is a private law school in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1851 and is the oldest independent law school in the nation. It is accredited by the American Bar Association and has an affiliation agreement with University at Al ...
, graduating in 1867. While in law school Tripp met future president
William McKinley
William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
, who became a lifelong friend.
Initial career in the Dakota Territory
Following law school, Tripp practiced law, first in Maine and then in Yankton with his half-brother William, who had been appointed as a Surveyor General for Dakota Territory. He was active in Democratic Party politics, serving as Dakota Territory party chairman, delegate to the national convention in 1872 and 1892, and in 1878 the Democratic candidate for the Territory's delegate in Congress. Bartlett was part of a commission that codified the laws of the territory in 1877 and again in 1903, and served as president of an 1883 Constitutional Convention of for Statehood of South Dakota. From 1885 to 1889 he served as chief justice of the
Dakota Territory Supreme Court.
International career and return to South Dakota
From 1893 to 1897 he served as 25th
United States Ambassador to Austria
This is a list of ambassadors of the United States to Austria.
The United States first established diplomatic relations with Austria in 1838 during the time of the Austrian Empire. Relations between the United States have been continuous since t ...
under president
Grover Cleveland
Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
. In December 1897 he was elected as the first president of the recently established South Dakota
Bar Association. In 1899, at the request of McKinley, he headed an American-British-German commission which visited
Samoa
Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands ( Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands ( Manono and Apolima); ...
and helped negotiate the
Tripartite Convention of 1899 which settled disputes between those countries over the area. Tripp later published a book on his experiences there (''My Trip to Samoa'', 1911).
Tripp was briefly considered a candidate to be the Republican nominee for vice president under McKinley in 1900, but he withdrew after
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
entered the field. With no political opportunities left to him, he throw his full efforts into establishing a law school in South Dakota. Once the establishment of the
University of South Dakota College of Law was complete in 1901, he became its first professor lecturing on constitutional law and taxation there. Upon his death in 1911, he donated his entire legal collection to the law school's library.
Legacy
His efforts and contributions to the Dakota Territory and the later state of South Dakota earned him multiple namesakes.
Tripp County and the town of
Tripp in South Dakota are named after Bartlett Tripp. Tripp Park in Yankton was sold to the city for $1 by Tripp's estate; Tripp had intended to give the land to the city, but hadn't completed the transaction in his lifetime.
Personal life
Tripp was married twice, in 1863 to Ellen Jennings (died 1884) and then in 1887 to Maria Janet (Davis) Washburn (1846–1934), sister of Senator and Governor
Cushman K. Davis
Cushman Kellogg Davis (June 16, 1838November 27, 1900) was an American Republican politician who served as the seventh Governor of Minnesota and as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
Early life and American Civil War
Davis was born in Henderson, Ne ...
of Minnesota. Tripp had one daughter, Maude B., by his first wife. Maude (1866–1894) married South Dakota lawyer
Charles Hall Dillon
Charles Hall Dillon (December 18, 1853 – September 15, 1929) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from South Dakota (1913–19). He later served on the South Dakota Supreme Court. He was born near Jasper, Indiana in 1853.
...
, later U.S. Representative and Associate Justice of the
South Dakota Supreme Court
The South Dakota Supreme Court is the highest court in the state of South Dakota. It is composed of a chief justice and four associate justices appointed by the governor. One justice is selected from each of five geographic appointment districts ...
.
Tripp's second wife Janet (as she was usually called) had been married to a bookkeeper named Franklin Washburn, and had two children by her first marriage. Her first husband was killed in 1902 in a notable train wreck in the
Park Avenue railroad tunnel in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
.
Bartlett Tripp died from heart disease at his home in
Yankton, South Dakota
Yankton is a city in and the county seat of Yankton County, South Dakota, United States.
The population was 15,411 at the 2020 census, and it is the principal city of the Yankton Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes the entirety of Y ...
on December 8, 1911.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tripp, Bartlett
19th-century American diplomats
South Dakota lawyers
Colby College alumni
Albany Law School alumni
University of South Dakota faculty
People from Harmony, Maine
Ambassadors of the United States to Austria-Hungary
Writers from Maine
Writers from South Dakota
1839 births
1911 deaths
Justices of the Dakota Territorial Supreme Court
19th-century American judges
South Dakota Democrats
South Dakota Republicans
19th-century American lawyers