San Francisco County
HON. J. R. SHARPSTEIN
HON. J. R. SHARPSTEIN, Justice of the Supreme Court, and a resident of San Francisco, was born in the town of Richmond, Ontario county, New York, May 3, 1823. His ancestors were farmers. He was sent to a public school from the age of five years to sixteen. After that he necessarily attended a private school of Prof. A. S. Welch, the Norwalk Seminary, of which the late Bishop Edward Thomson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was principal, and an academy at Romeo, Michigan. When he was twelve years old his father moved to Michigan, purchasing a farm near Romeo. At the age of twenty-one he commenced reading law, at twenty-four was admitted to the bar, and within three months thereafter he opened an office at Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In the spring of 1848 he was appointed District Attorney of that county. In the early part of 1849 he moved to Kenosha, that State, and in 1850 was elected District Attorney of that county. In 1851 he was elected to represent that county in the State Senate. In 1853 he was appointed United States District Attorney of Wisconsin. Soon afterward he moved to Milwaukee, where he remained until the spring of 1854, when he came to California. He held that office until the spring of 1857, when he resigned. In 1862 he was elected a member of the Legislative Assembly. At the close of the session he resumed the practice of law, in partnership with Hon. R. L. Palmer.
In the spring of 1864, when recovering from a severe attack of rheumatism, he decided to move to California, and reached San Francisco about the first of July following, and has since resided here. Near the close of 1873 he was appointed Judge of the Twelfth Judicial District, took his seat on January 1, 1874, serving two years, and until the expiration of the term for which he was appointed. He was first elected a Justice of the Supreme Court, at the general election of 1879, and took his seat on January 1, 1880. In drawing for terms he drew one of the shortest, viz.: three years. At the next general election he was elected for a full term of twelve years.
Transcribed
by David and Joyce Rugeroni.
Source: “The Bay of
San Francisco,” Vol. 2, Pages 351-352, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2006 David Rugeroni.