James Aldrich (July 25, 1850 – January 23, 1910) was a South Carolina circuit judge and state representative.

Biography

Aldrich was born in

Barnwell, South Carolina Barnwell is a city in and county seat of Barnwell County, South Carolina, United States, located along U.S. Route 278. The population was 4,750 at the 2010 census. Geography Barnwell is located east of the center of Barnwell County at (33.244 ...

on July 25, 1850, the son of a prominent attorney, James T. Aldrich, and Isabel Coroneous Patterson. He attended private school until the Civil War interrupted, and was then home schooled. He also worked on the family farm as a child. In the closing days of the war, he joined a local militia unit. The war left his family nearly destitute, and Aldrich supplemented the household income hauling goods. He attended

Washington and Lee University , mottoeng = "Not Unmindful of the Future" , established = , type = Private liberal arts university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.092 billion (2021) , president = William C. Dudley , provost = Lena Hill , city = Lexingto ...

beginning in 1869, but was forced by circumstances to leave school in 1872. He read law, and in 1873 was admitted to the bar. He moved to

Aiken, South Carolina Aiken is the largest city in, and the county seat of, Aiken County, in western South Carolina. It is one of the two largest cities of the Central Savannah River Area. Founded in 1835, Aiken was named after William Aiken, the president of the Sout ...

. On December 15, 1874, he married Fannie Lebby. In 1876, he served as a defense attorney in the Ellenton riots and the

Hamburg Massacre The Hamburg Massacre (or Red Shirt Massacre or Hamburg riot) was a riot in the American town of Hamburg, South Carolina, in July 1876, leading up to the last election season of the Reconstruction Era. It was the first of a series of civil distu ...

, both of which ended in mistrials. He was held in high esteem by local Democrats after the trials, and was elected to the State House in 1878. He served as a member of the

South Carolina House of Representatives The South Carolina House of Representatives is the lower house of the South Carolina General Assembly. It consists of 124 representatives elected to two-year terms at the same time as U.S. congressional elections. Unlike many legislatures, seati ...

till 1884. He returned to the House in 1886, and this time served until 1889, when he was elected to the circuit court. While a representative, he was a member of the Judiciary Committee, and chaired the Committee on Incorporation. In 1889 he was elected to serve the Second Circuit Court as a judge and served on the Bench for eighteen years. He died at his daughter's home in Aiken on January 23, 1910.

References

Sources

Garlington, J. C. ''Men of the Time.'' page3. 1902. Garlington Publishing Co. Google Books. Online. January 11, 2008.Brooks, Ulysses Robert. ''South Carolina Bench and Bar.'' pp 270 – 273. The State company. 1908. Online. Google Books. January 14, 2009.Snowden, Yates and Harry Gardner Cutler. ''History of South Carolina.'' pp 13 -14. Leis. 1920. Online. Google Books. January 14, 2009.
*State Historical Society of Iowa ''Iowa Journal of History.'' The State Historical Society of Iowa. 1910. 1850 births 1910 deaths Circuit court judges in the United States Members of the South Carolina House of Representatives People from Aiken, South Carolina People from Barnwell, South Carolina 19th-century American judges {{SouthCarolina-state-judge-stub