Lorenzo Crounse

Born in Sharon in Schoharie County, New York, Crounse attended the New York Conference seminary in Charlotteville, New York. While teaching school, he studied law and in 1857 he was admitted to the bar.[1] In 1860, he married Mary E. Griffiths and they had four children.[2]

Crounse established a law practice at Fort Plain, New York. During the Civil War he organized Battery K, New York Light Artillery and became a captain in 1861, served for a year; but was discharged after suffering wounds at a battle on the Rappahannock River in Virginia and resumed his law practice.[3]

Lorenzo Crounse

Crounse moved to the Nebraska Territory in 1864, and became part of the territorial legislature and later was a delegate to the state's constitutional convention. He became a Justice of Nebraska state supreme court from 1867 to 1873, and after his term expired, ran and was elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses (1873–1877). He declined to run again in 1876.

He became an internal revenue collector for the district of Nebraska in 1879, and then was appointed Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury on April 27, 1891. He resigned on October 31, 1892 to become the 8th governor of Nebraska. During his term, future Nebraska representative William E. Andrews worked as his private secretary. He served until 1895, and then served briefly in the Nebraska state senate in 1901.[4]

After his wife's death in 1882, Crounse remained a widower, and he spent his last years with one of his four children. He died in Omaha. The now-extinct village of Crounse, Nebraska, near Lincoln was named after him.[5]

• Gov. Lorenzo Crounse papers at the Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved on 2009-07-06.
• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• National Governors Association
• Semi-Centennial History of Nebraska