Bernard C. Whitman Explained

Bernard Crosby Whitman
Office:Justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada
Term Start:1868
Term End:1875
Predecessor:Henry O. Beatty
Successor:William H. Beatty
Birth Date:25 October 1827
Birth Place:Waltham, Massachusetts
Death Place:San Francisco, California
Education:Harvard College
Occupation:Lawyer, Judge
Spouse:Mary Elizabeth Church (m. 1857)
Children:Crosby Church Whitman

Bernard Crosby Whitman (October 25, 1827 – August 5, 1885) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Nevada from 1868 to 1875.

Born in Waltham, Massachusetts, Whitman was the son of attorney Levi Whitman of Norway, Maine, and the nephew of Ezekiel Whitman, who was chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.[1]

Whitman graduated from Harvard College in 1846,[2] and read law with the Portland, Maine firm of Fessenden & Deblois.[1] He moved to San Francisco, California, in 1850, where he "practiced law and politics".[3] He married Mary Elizabeth Church on July 14, 1857, and moved to Virginia City, Nevada in 1864.[3] Appointed to the Nevada Supreme Court in 1868, he served as chief justice from 1873 to 1874.[3]

Whitman "returned to California in 1882",[3] and died in San Francisco in 1885 at the age of 57.[2] Whitman's son Crosby Church Whitman also attended Harvard, graduating in 1886 and becoming a doctor. Crosby died in Paris, France, during World War I, under the strain of practicing medicine during the war.[4]

Notes and References

  1. "Recent Deaths" (addendum), Boston Evening Transcript (August 27, 1885), p. 4.
  2. "Recent Deaths", Boston Evening Transcript (August 25, 1885), p. 4.
  3. Andrew Johnson, The Papers of Andrew Johnson, p. 323.
  4. Mark Antony De Wolfe Howe, Memoirs of the Harvard Dead in the War Against Germany, Volume 1 (1920), p. 81-83.