George B. Corkhill

George Baker Corkhill (1838 – 1886) was an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and prosecuted Charles J. Guiteau for the assassination of James A. Garfield.

Corkhill was born in Harrison County, Ohio, and moved to Iowa with his family at age nine.[1] In 1859, he graduated from Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. He studied law at Harvard Law School but left to join the Union Army when the Civil War broke out. He served throughout the war, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. After the war he worked for Senator and Secretary of the Interior James Harlan in Washington, D.C., and practiced law in Iowa.[2] In 1872, he returned to Washington and became the editor and part-owner of a newspaper, the Washington Daily Chronicle, until it went out of business. In January 1880, he became United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and served on the prosecution team during the Guiteau trial, which began in November 1881 and ended with Guiteau's conviction in January 1882. He also prosecuted postal officials involved in the Star Route scandal.[2]

Corkhill's first marriage was to Olive B. Miller, the eldest daughter of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Freeman Miller. His second marriage was to a daughter of Hiram Walbridge, a U.S. Representative from New York. During his time in Washington he lived at Ingleside.[1] He died in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, on July 6, 1886, from a disability contracted during the war.[2] The New York Times, in his obituary, described him as "one of the best known and most popular men in the District [of Columbia]."[1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "George B. Corkhill Dead" (PDF). New York Times. July 7, 1886.
  2. 1 2 3 "Col George Baker Corkhill (1838 - 1886) - Find A Grave Memorial". findagrave.com. Retrieved 2017-07-11.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.