California State Officials Biographies 1911

NORTON PARKER CHIPMAN

Submitted by Nancy Pratt Melton

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THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT: Presiding Justice.
NORTON PARKER CHIPMAN (Republican) was born at Milford, Union County, Ohio, of 
New England parentage, his father and mother being natives of Vermont. The 
family soon afterwards moved to Iowa and resided variously at Keosauqua, Mount 
Pleasant, and Washington, in that State. He attended school at these places, 
receiving most of his education at Howe's Academy in Mount Pleasant and at 
Washington College. He commenced studying law at the latter place, but graduated 
at the Cincinnati Law School, entering practice just before the Civil War, at 
Washington, Iowa. At the call of President Lincoln, in 1861, he enlisted in the 
Second Iowa Infantry, the first three-year regiment from that State; was made 
Second lieutenant of Company H; appointed by Col. Samuel R. Curtis regimental 
adjutant; elected by the officers as major to fill the vacancy caused by the 
promotion of Colonel Curtis to the rank of brigadier-general; was detailed to 
serve as chief of the latter's staff; returned to his regiment and took part in 
Grant's campaign on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers; was severely wounded in 
a charge of his regiment upon the Confederate works at Fort Donelson; was back 
at his post at the siege of Corinth, where he received promotion as colonel and 
additional aid-de-camp in the regular army on the staff of Major-General 
Halleck, and was assigned to duty with his old commander, Curtis, now 
major-general, commanding the Department of Arkansas, and was made his chief of 
staff; was sent to Washington, D. C., on special duty, his services while there 
attracting the attention of Secretary of War Stanton, who refused his earnest 
request to be returned to field duty, and he served in the War Department to the 
close of the war; he successfully performed some important and hazardous special 
service as bearer of dispatches to commanders in the field, by the personal 
detail of President Lincoln, and came near capture by "Mosby's Guerrillas" on 
one of these occasions and on another by the retreating army of General Early; 
as judge-advocate he tried and convicted the Andersonville Prison jailer, Henry 
Wirz, who was hanged in "Old Capitol Prison" for his atrocious cruelties to 
prisoners of war; he also tried many other important military commission cases 
as judge-advocate; was brevetted brigadier-general of volunteers at the close of 
the war, and resigned to enter the practice of law at Washington, D. C., in 
November, 1865; when the District of Columbia was given a territorial form of 
government he was appointed Secretary of the District by President Grant in 
1870, but resigned and was elected Delegate to Congress, where he served two 
terms (1871-1875) and was the only representative ever given the district in 
Congress. In 1868 and 1869 he was adjutant general of the Grand Army of the 
Republic on the staff of its commander-in-chief, General John A. Logan, and was 
largely instrumental in effecting a reorganization, on a sound and enduring 
basis, of that remarkable society of Civil War veterans; it was while adjutant 
general in 1868 that he wrote the memorable order creating Memorial Day. He came 
to California to reside in 1876, since which time he has been prominently 
connected with the industrial, political, and social welfare of the State. No 
man has written more or with better effect or given more of his time and 
energies to advertise to the world the attractions of California. For a number 
of years he was the president of the California State board of Trade, and to him 
is due the credit of promulgating the dictim that "the climate of California is 
the State's most valuable asset." In April, 1897, he was appointed by the 
Supreme Court as one of the five commissioners of that court, and served in that 
capacity until appointed by the five commissioners of that court, and served in 
that capacity until appointed by Governor Pardee in 1905 as Presiding Justice of 
the District Court of Appeal, for the Third District; he was regularly elected 
to that office in November, 1906, and allotted the twelve-year term.
 
Source: California Blue Book, or State Roster, 1911
Compiled by Frank C. Jordan, Secretary of State
Friend W. Richardson, Superintendent of State Printing, Sacramento, CA, 1913