Streeter, Farris B.

Born: 1819-09-24 Pennsylvania

Died: 1877-08-19 Pennsylvania

Farris B. Streeter was a lawyer, state legislator, federal government official, and circuit judge. Born in Harford, Pennsylvania, Streeter was educated at the Harford Academy and the Clinton Liberal Institute in New York. He read law under with George W. Woodward and Davis Dimock, Jr., and was admitted to the bar of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, on April 20, 1841. From 1843 to 1847, Streeter served as district attorney for Susquehanna County. In the 1850s, Streeter had at least six law students of his own. Streeter also succeeded in the political world. He was elected to the Pennsylvania Senate in 1847, serving until 1851. On June 3, 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Streeter solicitor of the Treasury of the United States. Enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and repeal of the Missouri Compromise soured Streeter on the Democratic Party, but he remained in his post until 1857, when James Buchanan began his presidency. In 1859, Streeter attended the Democratic Party’s state convention in Pennsylvania, but Buchanan’s handling of the Kansas Territory pushed him into the Republican Party. In 1865, Governor Andrew G. Curtin appointed Streeter president judge of the Thirteenth District.

In 1860, Farris B. Streeter and his wife Sarah had one child and lived in Montrose, Pennsylvania, where Streeter owned $3,000 in real property, with a personal estate of $12,500.

Commemorative Biographical Record of Northeastern Pennsylvania (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1900), 389; Emily C. Blackman, History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1873), 39, 47-48, 246; Catalogue of the Officers and Students of Clinton Liberal Institute, at Clinton, Oneida County, N.Y., During the Year Terminating August 30, 1838 (Utica, NY: C. C. P Grosh, 1838), 8; Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1887), 9:170; Proceedings of the State Convention of the State Rights Democracy of Pennsylvania: Held at Harrisburg, on Wednesday, April 13, 1859 (Harrisburg: C.D. Hineline, 1859), 8; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Montrose, Susquehanna County, PA, 239; Gravestone, Harford Cemetery, Susquehanna County, PA.