Doolittle, James R.

Born: 1815-01-03 Hampton, New York

Died: 1897-07-27 Providence, Rhode Island

Flourished: Wisconsin

James R. Doolittle was an attorney, judge, and U.S. senator. He attended public school, Middlebury Academy in Vermont, and Hobart College in Geneva, New York. After graduating college in 1834, he undertook the study of law. In 1837, he gained admission to the bar and began practicing law in Rochester, New York. He also married Mary L. Cutting that year, with whom he eventually had at least six children. In 1841, he relocated to Warsaw, New York. His career progressed significantly from 1847 forward. From 1847 to 1850, he served as Wyoming County, New York’s district attorney, relocated to Racine, Wisconsin in 1851, then served as judge of Wisconsin’s first judicial circuit from 1853 until his resignation in 1856. Although a Democrat early in life, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise through the Kansas-Nebraska Act led him to leave the Democratic Party. In the election of 1856, he won a seat in the U.S. Senate as a Republican, won reelection in 1862, and served in that body until after the Civil War. In 1850, he owned $2,500 in real estate. By 1860, he owned $4,000 in real and personal property.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 955; Lineage Book National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (Washington, DC: n.p., 1938), 163:244; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Warsaw, Wyoming County, NY, 320; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Mt. Pleasant, Racine County, WI, 98; Gravestone, Mound Cemetery, Racine, WI.