Joseph G. Baldwin

Joseph Glover Baldwin (January 21, 1815 – September 29, 1864) was an American attorney and humor writer who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California from October 2, 1858, to January 2, 1864.

Biography

Born in Winchester, Virginia, Baldwin was educated in Stanton, Virginia.Donna R. Causey,
Biography: Joseph Glover Baldwin born 1815
, ''Alabama Pioneers'' (February 4, 2014). He displayed precocious talents; while still a teenager he worked as a Deputy Court Clerk and a newspaper editor. He read law in the office of his uncle, Judge Briscoe G. Baldwin, to become a lawyer and was admitted to the bar by age 19.Mary Alice Kirkpatrick,
Joseph G. Baldwin (Joseph Glover), 1815-1864
, ''Documenting the American South'' (2004).Proceedings on the Death of the Hon. Joseph G. Baldwin
Cal. Reports Vol. 26 (October 4th, 1864). In 1836, Joseph Baldwin moved to DeKalb County, Alabama, thereafter moving to Gainesville, Alabama in 1838. There, he practiced law with his brother, Cornelius C. Baldwin, and with J. Bliss. Another brother, Oliver P. Baldwin, was a lawyer, newspaper editor, and speaker in Cleveland and later Richmond, Virginia. Gainesville was in Sumter County, which had a sizeable and growing population profiting from a booming economy and from enslaved labor farming the rich soil; the people Baldwin associated with were "men of the first rank in the legal profession, of high attainments in scholarship, of genuine literary taste and culture, and of fun-loving spirits and mirth-provoking propensities"—these were the "flush times" he would describe in his first book.

In 1843, Baldwin was elected as a Whig to the Alabama House of Representatives. Entry for Joseph G. Baldwin. In August 1849, he was defeated by Democrat Samuel Williams Inge in a bid for the United States Congress by only 400 votes. In 1850, Baldwin moved to Livingston, Alabama, where he continued to practice and to write. He published a book of humorous stories, ''The Flush Times of Alabama and Mississippi: A Series of Sketches'' (1853), and a collection of sketches of US politicians, ''Party Leaders'' (1855).

In 1853, Baldwin moved to Mobile, and in 1854 to California, where he served as counsel on a number of important cases. In 1858, following the death of Chief Justice Hugh Murray, Baldwin was nominated by the Democratic Party, as well as endorsed by the Lecompton Democrat convention, and elected by the people to serve out the remainder of Murray's term on the California Supreme Court from October 2, 1858, until January 2, 1862. Chief Justice Stephen Johnson Field praised Baldwin's opinion in ''Hart v. Burnett'' (1860), concerning pueblo land grants, as a model of scholarly learning. In July 1861, he was put forward for nomination by the Breckenridge Democratic Party for another term on the court, but he declined the nomination. Edward Norton was elected to fill Baldwin's seat.

After stepping down from the bench, Baldwin resumed the practice of law in San Francisco. In April 1864, he signed the loyalty oath to the Union required of attorneys that fellow Southerners Solomon Heydenfeldt and James D. Thornton refused to sign.

Baldwin died in San Francisco on September 29, 1864.

Personal life

In 1839, he married Sidney Gaylard White and they had at least six children. Their son, Alexander W. Baldwin, became an attorney and was appointed as a judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nevada. He died in November 1869 in a railway accident in Alameda County, California. In 1863, during the American Civil War, another son, Joseph G. Baldwin, Jr., was accused of plotting with a group of sympathizers with the Confederate States of America to capture military posts in California. He died August 14, 1864, at 20 years of age, in Warm Springs, California. Their daughter, Kate S. Baldwin, married John B. Felton, who was her father's law partner and later mayor of Oakland. She died December 13, 1888, in Oakland. Of the three other children: two sons, Sidney died young and John died in 1868 at age 22; and a daughter, Cornelia Baldwin, resided with her mother.

References

Selected publications

* Baldwin, Joseph G. (1853)
''The flush times of Alabama and Mississippi. A series of sketches''
Archive.org.
* Baldwin, Joseph G. (1855)
''Party leaders; sketches of Thomas Jefferson, Alex'r Hamilton, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, John Randolph, of Roanoke, including notices of many other distinguished American statesmen''
Archive.org.

External links

Alabama Pioneers page on Joseph G. BaldwinCalifornia Supreme Court Historical Society page on Joseph G. Baldwin
California State Courts. Retrieved July 19, 2017.

See also

* List of justices of the Supreme Court of California
* Stephen Johnson Field
* Warner Cope

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baldwin, Joseph G.
1815 births
1864 deaths
People from Winchester, Virginia
Republican Party members of the Alabama House of Representatives
Justices of the Supreme Court of California
Writers of American Southern literature
California Republicans
U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law
19th-century American judges
19th-century American lawyers
19th-century American legislators
19th-century Alabama politicians