Alameda County
Biographies
JUDGE E. O. CROSBY
The subject of this biographical sketch, Judge Elisha Oscar Crosby, was born July 18, 1818, in the town of Groton, Tompkins County, New York. At Cortland Academy he received a fair English and Classical education. With James Leach, a leading lawyer of Central New York, he pursued the study of law, and in 1841 was admitted to the Bar of the County Court of Tompkins and Cortland Counties. With Hon. E. G. Spalding, of Buffalo, he pursued his legal studies still further, and 1843 was admitted to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. July 18, 1843, his twenty-fifth birthday, he was examined by the eminent Chancellor, R. H. Walworth, who signed his diploma as a solicitor in the Court of Chancery of the State of New York. In 1844 he went to New York City and formed a partnership with Hon. Abner Benedict, an eminent member of the New York Bar. Here he formed the friendship of the most distinguished lawyers of New York – Ambrose L. Jordan, James T. Brady, David Graham, Daniel Lord, and others. Through Chancellor Wadworth he received his first official commission, Examiner in Chancery for the State of New York, which office he held for several years, and satisfactorily did he discharge the duties of the office, though it required a thorough knowledge of chancery practice and the rules governing the taking of testimony in equity cases. Sharing in the excitement caused by the discovery of gold in California, he sailed, on Christmas-day, 1848, for the new Dorado, bearing letters from Messrs. Howland & Aspinwall, directing their agents to give Mr. Crosby every facility to reach California. On the 28th of February, 1849, he arrived in San Francisco. So soon, widely, and favorably did he become known, that he was selected as one of the forty-eight delegates (of whom but six or eight still survive) who were sent to Monterey September 1, 1849, to form a State Constitution, to bring order out of chaos, and found a new empire of civilization, the first upon the Pacific Coast. In this convention Mr. Crosby took an active and prominent part. As Chairman of the Finance Committee, and in organizing the judiciary of the new State, Judge Crosby did most efficient, commendable work. By hard, earnest, faithful work, the Constitution was soon ready to submit to the people for their ratification. At the request of the Sacramento delegation, Judge Crosby was appointed, by Governor Riley, Prefect of that large district. As such officer he was obliged to establish precincts, return the votes for two Congressmen, Governor, and all other State officers. So faithfully and promptly did he discharge his responsible duty that he established fifty-two precincts, had all the votes collected and expressed to Monterey to be counted December 1, 1849. He did this at a personal expense of $1,400, which the State has never returned to him. During the first and second sessions of the Legislature Judge Crosby was a member of the Senate. He held the important, onerous position of Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and largely assisted in organizing the judiciary system of the State. Though he often worked till two or three o’clock in the morning, he was always in his seat in the Senate promptly at 9 o’clock. The Senate journal, especially of the first session of the Legislature, shows, through his able reports, his faithful, important, successful labors in organizing the Supreme Court, District Courts, the adoption of the common law, etc. Removing to San Francisco in 1853, he successfully engaged in prosecuting Mexican and Spanish grants to lands before the United States Land Commission and the United States District and Supreme Court, on appeal. The archives of the United States Land Commission and the United States Courts show the extent and success of his labors. To prosecute appeals in the Supreme Court, he was admitted an Attorney and Counsellor of the Supreme Court of the United States. By President Lincoln he was appointed Minister to Guatemala. From the President he received repeated thanks for the faithfulness and efficiency with which he discharged his duty, but especially for his important services as umpire to the Joint Commission, appointed by Great Britain and Honduras, to settle treaty stipulations for adjustment of claims growing out of the Protectorate of the Bay Islands of Honduras and the Mosquito coast and territory. From Great Britain and Honduras he received thanks for the able and impartial manner in which he discharged the delicate, responsible duties of that position. His health failing, he tendered his resignation to Secretary Seward, and went to Philadelphia for medical treatment. After three years he went to Europe to study the world’s older civilization in contrast with that of the new State, to found which, on the shores of the Pacific, he had given the energies and labors of the best years of his life. From Europe he returned to his beloved California, the best, most favored land, in his opinion, that the sun shines on. Some five years since, by a violent cold settling in his eyes, and the subsequent maltreatment of a professed oculist, he suffered the loss of the sight of the right eye, with the impairment of the other. By this terrible blow he has been obliged to discontinue his professional labors. With resignation and cheerfulness he discharges the duties of his present station in life, that of Justice of the Peace, with kindness and justice – a credit to his past life and the community where he lives. For years he has been a member of the Ethnological Society of New York, and has, from time to time, made contributions to its literature, which have been published in the journal of that learned society. In the Masonic Order he is a Knight Templar. He is also a member of the Society of California Pioneers, the Legion of Honor, and other benevolent associations. May his long, varied, useful life be continued many years among a people who can appreciate the fact that very few men now living in California have by hard, unselfish labor, the truest patriotism and zealous, intelligent devotion to duty, done more than Judge Crosby to make the Golden State the most happy, the most prosperous, the most to be envied in the sisterhood of States.
History of Alameda County, California…, Oakland, M.W. Wood Publ., 1883
p. 869-871
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler, January, 2005.