Cato, Sterling G.

Born: 1822-XX-XX Georgia

Died: 1867-10-24 Liberty, Missouri

Flourished: 1855 to 1858 Leavenworth, Kansas

Sterling G. Cato was a lawyer and territorial judge. Little is known about Cato's early life and career. Sterling and his brother Lewis L. Cato were both lawyers in Barbour County, Alabama, in 1850. In September 1855, Sterling received appointment as an associate justice of the Kansas Territory and remained in that position until July 1858. He was strongly pro-slavery and consistently ruled in favor of slavery in the Kansas Territory, including authorizing the arrests of several members of the free-soil Topeka Legislature. It was Cato's order to issue certificates of election to several pro-slavery men that led to Governor Robert J. Walker's refusal to comply and eventual removal from office. At the end of his term, Cato moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he again worked as a lawyer.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Barbour County, AL, 196; W. Brewer, Alabama: Her History, Resources, War Record, and Public Men (Montgomery, AL: Barrett & Brown, 1872), 131; Frank W. Blackmar, ed., "Cato, Sterling G.," Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History (Chicago: Standard, 1912), 1:300; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Division 35, Kansas City, Jackson County, MO, 80; Liberty Tribune (MO), 25 October 1867, 3:1.