Los Angeles
County
Biographies
THOMAS
HERBERT CORNETT
Thomas
H. Cornett, who made his home in Glendale during the last decade of his life,
was widely recognized as one of the outstanding members of the bar of Los Angeles County.
He was born in 1862 at Independence, Grayson County, Virginia, on the
Blue Ridge, his parents being Judge George W. and Elizabeth (Herbert) Cornett,
the former a lifelong resident of the Old Dominion. Judge G. W. Cornett was a prominent
representative of the legal profession in Virginia, where he served on the
bench for many years and enjoyed high standing as one of the foremost citizens
of his time.
In
the acquirement of an education Thomas H. Cornett attended the Elk Creek Academy
in Virginia and subsequently took a two years’ course in the classical
department of Emory and Henry College in his native state. His professional training was received as a
student at what is now George Washington University of Washington, D. C., from
which he was graduated with the Bachelor of Laws degree in 1887. In the fall of the same year he began the
practice of his chosen profession at Kearney, Buffalo County, Nebraska, where
he remained until 1894, serving for two terms as judge of the probate
court. In 1894 he returned to
Independence, Virginia, where he took over his father’s law practice and later
went to New Martinsville, West Virginia.
It was in 1924 that he came to California and established his home in
Glendale, Los Angeles County, where he soon won distinction as a leading member
of the bar and continued in practice throughout the remainder of his life. He maintained offices at 615-616 Security
Building and held membership in the Glendale Bar Association, the Los Angeles
County Bar Association and the California State Bar Association.
During
the period of this country’s participation in the World War, Mr. Cornett
rendered patriotic service to the government as a four-minute speaker and also
as chairman of the home service section of the American Red Cross in Wetzel
County, West Virginia. He was affiliated
with the various Masonic bodies, including Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine
in Los Angeles, being a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and was a
worthy exemplar of the teachings and purposes of the craft. Mr. Cornett died suddenly at his home in
Glendale on the 17th of November, 1934.
On
January 1, 1885, in Washington, D. C., Mr. Cornett married Mary Louise Culver,
a daughter of Charles Post Culver, a prominent attorney of Washington, D.
C. Two children were born to them: Louis Culver Cornett, who married Georgia
Fair of West Virginia, and they have four children: Thomas F., Virginia Louise, Catherine E. and
Marguerite M.; and Mary Gentry Cornett.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 549-550,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES