Background
Norman Jay Colman was born on May 16, 1827 near Richfield Springs, New York, United States. He was the son of Hamilton and Nancy (Sprague) Colman.
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educator journalist attorney politician
Norman Jay Colman was born on May 16, 1827 near Richfield Springs, New York, United States. He was the son of Hamilton and Nancy (Sprague) Colman.
Colman attended an academy in a neighboring town, and then went to Louisville, Kentucky, where he taught school. While there he also studied law and received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the law department of the University of Louisville.
Colman began the practise of law in New Albany, Indiana. Within three years he was elected to the office of district attorney, but as he had never intended to follow the law as a permanent profession, he resigned his office and removed to St. Louis. He was a Unionist during the Civil War, serving as lieutenant-colonel of the 85th Missouri Militia.
As a boy Colman had read the old Albany Cultivator to which his father was a subscriber and had made up his mind that some time he would publish such a paper. He purchased a country house, and in 1865 began the publication of an agriculture paper, Colman’s Rural World. In the same year he was elected to the Missouri legislature, and after serving with distinction in that body received the Democratic nomination for lieutenant-governor of Missouri in 1868. He was defeated in the election as was the entire Democratic ticket, but in 1874 he was again nominated for the same office and elected.
Colman interested himself in the welfare of the Missouri state university at Columbia, and was for sixteen years a member of the board of curators of that institution. At the same time he served as the head of many agricultural organizations, some of state, some of Middle Western, and some of national character. He was a member of the Missouri state board of agriculture from the time of its organization in 1865 until his death in 1911.
Because of his broad and practical knowledge he was appointed United States commissioner of agriculture by President Cleveland in 1885. As commissioner he so improved the work of the bureau and so enlarged its scope that on February 11, 1889, it was elevated in dignity and power to an executive department, with its secretary as a member of the president’s cabinet. After his retirement as secretary of agriculture he lived at his country home and devoted his time to the editorial management of his journal.
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Colman was a member of the Democratic Party.
Colman was a president of the National Editorial Association and of the Missouri Press Association.
Colman married Clara Porter in 1851 and had at least one child, daughter Laura Kate Colman, who was the second wife of John Fremont Hill, Governor of Maine. After Clara's death he married second wife, the former Catherine Wright in 1866 and had at least one child, daughter Clara.