Hamilton Ward Sr. (July 3, 1829– December 28, 1898) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a judge on the

Supreme Court of New York The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

, the

attorney general of New York The attorney general of New York is the chief legal officer of the U.S. state of New York and head of the Department of Law of the state government. The office has been in existence in some form since 1626, under the Dutch colonial government o ...

, and a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives.

Education

He attended the common schools and was privately tutored. He studied law in

Elmira, New York Elmira () is a city and the county seat of Chemung County, New York, United States. It is the principal city of the Elmira, New York, metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses Chemung County. The population was 26,523 at the 2020 cens ...

, was admitted to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

Early career

He commenced legal practice in Philipsville in 1851. Beginning in 1858 Ward was regularly selected as a delegate to New York's Republican state conventions, and he attended almost every one until 1890. He was

district attorney In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a l ...

of Allegany County from 1856 to 1859 and again from 1862 to 1865. He was appointed in 1862 by the

governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...

as commissioner to raise and equip troops for the Civil War.

United States House of Representatives

Ward was elected as a Republican to the 39th, 40th and

41st United States Congress The 41st United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1869, ...

es, serving from March 4, 1865 to March 3, 1871. While a Representative, he was Chairman of the Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Fortieth Congress). In 1868, Ward was on the seven-person committee tasked with authoring the articles of impeachment against President

Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...

after Johnson was impeached. Ward was not a candidate for renomination to the House in 1870.

Post-congressional career in New York State politics

Ward was

from 1880 to 1881, elected in

1879 Events January–March * January 1 – The Specie Resumption Act takes effect. The United States Note is valued the same as gold, for the first time since the American Civil War. * January 11 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins. * Janu ...

. Ward was a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1890, and was appointed (and subsequently elected) a justice of the

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the trial-level court of general jurisdiction in the New York State Unified Court System. (Its Appellate Division is also the highest intermediate appellate court.) It is vested with unlimited civ ...

and served from 1891 to 1895, and in the Appellate Division from 1895 until his death in 1898.

Personal life

Ward's son

Hamilton Ward Jr. Hamilton Ward Jr. (January 20, 1871—October 8, 1932) was an American lawyer and politician. Biography Hamilton Ward Jr. was born in Washington, DC on January 20, 1871, while his father Hamilton Ward Sr. was serving in Congress. The younger War ...

would go on to serve as attorney general of New York himself (1929–1930). Ward was buried at the Forest Hill Cemetery in Belmont.

References

Sources

Obituary
in the '' New York Times'' on December 29, 1898

External links

Additional biographic material
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ward, Hamilton Sr. 1829 births 1898 deaths People from Salisbury, Herkimer County, New York People from Wellsville, New York County district attorneys in New York (state) New York State Attorneys General New York Supreme Court Justices Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state) 19th-century American politicians 19th-century American judges Impeachment of Andrew Johnson