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Alton Brooks Parker

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"ALTON BROOKS PARKER (1852-), American lawyer, was born at Cortland, N.Y., May 14 1852. He studied at the local academy and normal school, taught for a short time, read law in an office, and in 1873 graduated from the Albany Law School. He was admitted to the bar and began to practise law at Kingston, N.Y. In 1877 he was elected surrogate of Ulster co., and was reelected in 1883. He resigned in 1885 on being appointed by the governor justice of the N.Y. Supreme Court to fill a vacancy, and the following year was regularly elected. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1884 and in 1885 declined President Cleveland's offer of the first assistant postmaster-generalship. He was appointed a member of the second division of the N.Y. Court of Appeals in 1889 and a member of the general term in 1893. In 1898 he was elected chief justice of the N.Y. Court of Appeals. In 1904 he resigned on being nominated by the Democrats for president, but he was defeated by Theodore Roosevelt, the electoral vote being 336 for Roosevelt to 140 for Parker, the popular vote 7,623,486 for Roosevelt to 5,077,971 for Parker. He then resumed the practice of law in New York City. He was a delegate-at-large from New York to the National Democratic Convention in 1912. In 1913 he was counsel for the managers of the trial leading to the impeachment of Governor Sulzer of New York.