HENRY N. CLEMENT

Henry N. Clement enjoyed a high place in the legal profession at San Francisco, where he practiced law from 1875 until his death. He was also known as a man of unusual literary gifts, and even after taking up the profession of law contributed more or less regularly to the press.

He was a native of Ohio, but the age of six months was taken by his parents to Muscatine, Iowa, and subsequently was reared in a frontier locality of that state, at what is now Eddyville. His father was a government surveyor there. Henry N. Clement at the age of ten years went to work to learn the printer’s trade with the Eddyville Free Press. He worked as a printer on the Ottumwa Courier, also attended school and completed a literary education while at Galesburg, Illinois, and where at the same time he followed his trade with the Galesburg Free Democrat, a Republican paper. While at Galesburg he heard one of the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. In 1860, he removed to Chicago, and for about a year, was employed on the Chicago Tribune. In 1861 he bought the Eddyville Free Press, and was its editor and proprietor until 1864. He used the paper to promote the Union cause during the Civil War, and made many speeches for the Republican Party throughout Iowa.

Mr. Clement in 1868 graduated from the law department of the University of Michigan, and for five years practiced in his home town in Iowa. In 1875 he removed to San Francisco, and after getting established, his talents brought him a large and satisfactory volume of law practice. For ten years he was attorney for the San Francisco Gas Light Company, and he handled several cases that attracted wide attention and involved important principles and large sums of money. At the very beginning of his California residence he was interested in the Chinese problem, and subsequently became one of the ablest expounders of the essential views of California toward that race. He wrote regularly for the newspapers and also many special articles, poems and humorous essays for special occasions.

A citizen of America was killed in Mexico, and his widow, Mrs. Janet M. Baldwin, sued for damages. Mr. Clement prosecuted the case in behalf of the claimant and the United States, and secured a judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court which was satisfied. James G. Blaine, who was an intimate friend of Mr. Clement, paid high tribute to Mr. Clement and stated that his briefs were remarkable. Mr. Clement was one of the organizers of the San Francisco Art Institute and was one of its first directors. He always took an active part in civic affairs and was one of the Board of Freeholders with Dr. E. R. Taylor and others who framed the charter for the City and County of San Francisco now in use. He was a member of the Bohemian Club, the Bar Association, the Civil Service Reform Society, the Social Science Association and the Masonic Order. Mr. Clement is survived by a daughter, Miss Ada Clement, a resident of San Francisco and prominent in musical circles of the city.

Transcribed by: Frank Vaccarezza.

Source:Millard, Bailey “The San Francisco Bay Region” Vol. 3 page 435. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924.

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