San Francisco
County
Biographies
JOSIAH
GOULD SEVERANCE
The subject of this sketch was born in the
State of Maine, September 30, 1832. He prepared for college at Hampden Academy,
and was admitted at Bowdoin College in 1852, but through the persuasions of
friends withdrew, and entered upon the study of the law in the office of Hon.
Hannibal Hamlin at Hampshire, where he pursued his studies for about one year,
and then removed to Bangor at which place he prepared himself for admission to
the Supreme Judicial Court in the office of the late Hon. John E. Godfrey, for
many years Judge of the Probate Court of Penobscot county. Immediately after
his admission to practice, in 1855, he determined to try his future in California,
and, landing in San Francisco on the first day of January 1856, proceeded at
once to the mining county of Amador, when he was elected a member of the Board
of Supervisors in the fall of 1856, and District Attorney in 1858 by the
Douglas Democracy. He was very active in the formation of the Union Party in
Amador, and was Chairman of its first County Central Committee, and ran as its
candidate for the Assembly in 1862, but was defeated with the entire
ticket---he requiring twenty-nine more votes to elect him. In the Fall of 1862 he married Miss M. J. Tiel
of Jackson, and removed to the adjoining county of Calaveras, where he was
elected District Attorney in the following year and re-elected in 1865 to a
second term. In the spring of 1869 he took up his residence in Sacramento,
where he pursued the practice of his profession for four years and then removed
to San Francisco, where he has ever since continued the practice of the law,
being for a time Assistant District Attorney under Hon. D. J. Murphy. He was
candidate at large on the straight Republican ticket for the late
Constitutional Convention, but suffered defeat with the whole ticket.
Mr. Severance has, besides his legal
labors, given some attention to literary work, and for a time was editor of the
Amador Ledger, and was editor and
proprietor of the San Andreas Register.
He has written several poems, which have appeared in the periodicals, and has
on numerous occasions composed and read poems at public celebrations.
Early in the history of fraternal
societies Mr. Severance took an active part, and has continued to labor for the
building up of these institutions---notably the A. O. U. W. and Knights of
Honor. Passing the chairs several years ago, he has been a member of the Grand
Lodge of the A. O. U. W. every year for the past nine years, seven of which he
has been a member of its most important committees---five years on Committee on
Appeals and two years on Laws. As Chairman of the Committee on Appeals his
decisions have been sustained without exception, and many of them embraced
questions of great legal technicality involving important rights, without the
advantage of precedent in the crude state of new fraternal principles of law.
He is now a member of the Committee on Appeals. He is also a member of the
Grand Lodge of the Knights of Honor, and has several times served on the
Committee on Laws of that Body. He was made a Master Mason before leaving his
native State, but has never affiihiated (sic) in
California. With other enterprising citizens of San Francisco he assisted in
forming the Pacific Endowment League, in the success of which, as its
President, he takes a deep interest, believing that co-operative insurance is
the best method of providing for the future, and the cheapest to the insured.
He is a fluent, eloquent and
forcible speaker; courteous and affable to all classes; a steadfast friend,
given to large hospitality, and very popular. Fraternity is not a meaningless
word with him; and benevolent deeds to the unfortunate and distressed have
endeared him to his fraters, and among those whom have known him in the
community in which has lived.
He is a fine specimen of physical
and mental manhood, and stands at the head of the bar as one of the ablest
lawyers on the Pacific Coast. Although he has a large and lucrative practice he
finds time to attend to fraternal organizations, and almost from the
commencement of Society life he has been called upon to deliver public
addresses on all important occasions.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: “Illustrated Fraternal Directory Including
Educational Institutions on the Pacific Coast, Page 290, Publ. Bancroft
Co., San Francisco. Cal. 1889.
© 2012 Cecelia M. Setty.
San Francisco County Biographies