Elijah Hise Norton was an American congressman and jurist. He was a successful business man.
Background
Elijah Hise Norton was born on November 21, 1821 in Russellville, Kentucky, United States. His father, William F. Norton, was the son of Quakers, but he became a Baptist when he married Mary Hise. She was of sturdy Pennsylvania German stock, was a pronounced Baptist, "loved to talk, talked much and talked well. " About 1817 they moved from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, where William F. Norton engaged in farming and salt merchandizing.
Education
Elijah Hise Norton obtained most of his preliminary education at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky. He then entered the law department of Transylvania University and graduated in 1842.
Career
The strong pioneer spirit of the times soon took control of him, and in 1845 he moved west, to settle in the promising Platte Purchase country of northwest Missouri. Here, at the town of Platte City, he hung his shingle over the door of a two-room log cabin and soon won recognition as a leading lawyer among a dozen competitors.
During the fifties Norton was looked upon as the leading anti-Benton Democrat of northwest Missouri. In 1852 he was elected circuit judge of the Platte Purchase district and ably fulfilled the duties of this office until 1860. He was then nominated and elected to the stormy Thirty-seventh Congress (1861 - 63), where he took a decided stand in opposition to secession, although he stated that he did not favor war to prevent it. He was defeated when he stood for reelection to Congress in 1862.
When a vacancy occurred on the state supreme bench in 1876, Governor C. H. Hardin appointed Norton to fill the place. Two years later he was elected to the office for the ensuing term and served until December 31, 1888, when he declined renomination. He was chief justice in 1887-88. Among the scores of supreme-court decisions which he rendered, students of jurisprudence may read with profit his citations and conclusions in such cases as State vs. Shock, dissenting opinion; Kitchen vs. St. Louis, Kansas City & Northern Railway Co. ; St. Louis vs. St. Louis Gaslight Co. ; and The Julia Building Association vs. The Bell Telephone Co. He was an able judge, though he did little to construct new bases of legal reasoning or re-direct the course of legal evolution.
From 1890 until his death he lived on his large farm near Platte City.
Achievements
Politics
As a leading delegate to the state convention of 1861 to consider the relations of Missouri to the federal government, Norton labored stubbornly and effectively against the movement to take Missouri out of the Union.
Connections
On May 28, 1850 Norton married Malinda C. Wilson, the daughter of an older and prominent lawyer of Platte City. She died in 1873, leaving a family of seven children, and on September 17, 1877, he married Missouri A. (Green) Marshall.