M. COONEY

 

 

M. COONEY, Esq., is a native of Ireland; by adoption he is an American.  He was born in the year 1839, and emigrated to the United States during his boyhood.  When he left school he engaged in teaching, and during this time his leisure moments were occupied with study of law.  He came to the Pacific coast in 1864, but did not resume his studies for some time.  In 1869 he was elected Magistrate, in 1871 he was admitted to the bar upon examination; two years later he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court and United States court.  Since that time he has been successfully engaged in the practice of his profession in this city.

 

While interested in political affairs, Mr. Cooney is not an office-seeker.  In 1888 he was urged to accept the nomination for Judge of the Superior Court of San Francisco, before the Republican convention, and also for the State Senate, but he steadily declined to do so, preferring to devote his time to the interest of his profession.

 

There are a few of our public-spirited citizens who has been more actively identified with different organizations, educational, benevolent, patriotic and charitable, than Mr. Cooney.  He has always occupied an advisory position, and at different times has been president of each organization with which he has been connected.  He has been prominent in Irish national affairs, and has been at the head of the national organizations on the coast.  He has been numbered among the founders of each of the representative societies, and is at present Grand Commander of the fraternal benefit organization known as the United Endowment Associates; this is the first organization of the kind which embodies the feature of protection and payments to living members and life benefits, besides furnishing insurance at actual cost on a mutual co-operative basis.  It has paid to date about $600,000 to living members.  There are between thirty and forty lodges in this city, and the membership is constantly increasing throughout the Eastern and Western States.

 

Source: "The Bay of San Francisco" Volume I. Lewis Publishing Company 1892. Page 435.

Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton.