Background
Lord was born in 1906 in Plainfield, New Jersey to Carroll P. Lord, a New England cotton merchant, and Frances E. Troy of Asheville, North Carolina.
Lord was born in 1906 in Plainfield, New Jersey to Carroll P. Lord, a New England cotton merchant, and Frances E. Troy of Asheville, North Carolina.
He graduated from The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee and received a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 1931.
The family moved South two years later. In 1932 he set up a law practice in Trenton, New Jersey. He served as Assistant United States Attorney and then as United States. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1943 to 1945.
Lord became active in Mercer County politics, first elected to the Lawrence Township committee in 1947.
The following year he took control of the Mercer County Democratic organization and became a powerful force in state Democratic politics. He was credited with masterminding the election of Robert B. Meyner as Governor of New Jersey in 1953, after a decade of Republican rule.
Meyner appointed Lord to the board of the Portuguese Authority. After the defeat Lord was elected chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee.
By 1965, the Lords were separated.
Apparently depressed by the estrangement, Lord committed suicide by garroting himself with an electric shaver cord at the home of a friend in Princeton.
In 1960, Lord was the Democratic nominee for United States Senate to face incumbent Clifford P. Case, but he was defeated by a large margin, despite the fact that John F. Kennedy narrowly won New Jersey in that year"s presidential election. He continued to play the role of Democratic kingmaker, helping his former law partner Richard J. Hughes win the gubernatorial election of 1961.
