Lawrence, Charles B.

Born: 1820-12-17 Vergennes, Vermont

Died: 1883-04-08 Alabama

Flourished:

Charles B. Lawrence was an attorney, circuit court judge, and an Illinois Supreme Court justice. Lawrence received his early education in the public schools of his hometown of Vergennes, Vermont, before matriculating to Middlebury College, where he studied for two years. Leaving Middlebury, Lawrence matriculated to Union College in New York, graduating in 1841. After graduation, he taught school in Lowndes County, Alabama. In 1843, Lawrence moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he read law in Alphonso Taft's law office. Lawrence left Cincinnati in the spring of 1844 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he completed his law studies under Henry S. Geyer and earned admission to the St. Louis bar. After practicing law in St. Louis for a year, Lawrence moved to Quincy, Illinois, where he entered into a partnership with David L. Hough. When Hough left Quincy, Lawrence entered into partnership with Archibald Williams, with whom Lawrence would practice law until 1856. In 1850, he was living with Williams in Quincy's North Ward and owned real property valued at $1,500. In 1851, Lawrence married Margaret Marston, with whom he would have five children. In May 1856, Lawrence attended the Illinois Anti-Nebraska Convention, and he later embraced the Republican Party. Ill-health forced Lawrence to give up the practice of law, and he and his wife traveled to Europe, where they remained for two years. Upon his return, Lawrence resumed his legal practice, but ill-health again forced him to lay aside his practice. He purchased a farm near Prairie City, Illinois, twenty miles south of Galesburg, and intended to pursue agriculture. In 1860, he was farming and owned real property valued at $36,500 and had a personal estate of $5,000. In 1861, Lawrence won election as judge of the Illinois Tenth Circuit Court, holding that position until 1864, when he won election to the Illinois Supreme Court. Lawrence served on the Illinois Supreme Court until the expiration of his term in 1873, and he was chief justice from 1870 to 1873. After his tenure on the Illinois Supreme Court, Judge Lawrence moved to Chicago, where he resumed the practice of law. He died unexpectedly in Decatur, Alabama, en route from Chicago to Florida.

Obituary, The Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 10 April 1883, 6:5-6; Howard Louis Conard, "Hon. Charles B. Lawrence," Magazine of Western History 12 (May-October 1890), 289-91; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 109-10; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Adams County, 5 February 1851, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), North Ward, Quincy, Adams County, IL, 229; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 30 May 1856, 2:4; Robert P. Howard, Illinois: A History of the Prairie State (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1972), 363; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Warren County, IL, 26; Gravestone, Hope Cemetery, Galesburg, IL.