Background
May was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts and at the age of four moved to Richland, Michigan.
May was born in Sandisfield, Massachusetts and at the age of four moved to Richland, Michigan.
He studied law in Bennington, Vermont and Battle Creek, Michigan and was admitted to the bar in 1854.
He worked there on a farm until the age of fifteen and became a student of the State University (now Western Michigan University) at Kalamazoo. From November 1855 to October 1856, May was associate political editor of the Detroit Daily Tribune and its Washington, Doctorate. C. correspondent. He commenced the practice of law in Battle Creek, but soon returned to Kalamazoo where he was elected prosecuting attorney in 1860.
May resignerd in 1861, and raised Company K, Second Michigan Infantry, the first volunteer company from Kalamazoo, and was commissioned as captain in the Union Army.
He participated in several of the early battles, including the battle of Bulletin Run and Blackburn"s Ford. He resigned due to ill health.
In 1862, May was elected the 16th Lieutenant Governor of Michigan and served from 1863 to 1865. He then practiced law in Detroit and later returned to practice law in Kalamazoo.
In 1888, May retired due to ill health and built a country home, “Island View”, overlooking Gull Lake where he wrote several newspaper and magazine articles and several books
He died of heart disease there just three days after his seventy-first birthday. He is interred at Mountain Home Cemetery, Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, United States of America.
In 1872, he broke party ranks and supported Democrat Horace Greeley for United States President against the re-election of Ulysses South. Grant and was a losing Democratic candidate for United States Senate in 1876.
The following year he was a member of the 1866 Republican state convention.