Background
Thomas Burke was born on December 22, 1849 in Clinton County, New York, the son of James Burke, an Irish immigrant, and his wife, Bridget Delia Ryan.
Thomas Burke was born on December 22, 1849 in Clinton County, New York, the son of James Burke, an Irish immigrant, and his wife, Bridget Delia Ryan.
He obtained a smattering of education at the Clinton public school, but in 1862 his mother died and the family removed to Iowa, where for the following four years he worked on a farm and in a store, earning money which enabled him to attend school intermittently.
In 1872 he studied in a law office at Marshall, Michigan.
In 1866 Thomas Burke went to Michigan, and, pursuing the same method, saved sufficient to defray a year's attendance at Ypsilanti Academy, where he graduated in 1870. He then entered the law department of the University of Michigan, teaching school in vacations.
After getting his lawyer license from a law office at Marshall, Michigan, he was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1873, being immediately afterward elected city attorney. Business conditions, however, were not promising, and he borrowed money to travel to the Pacific Coast, arriving in Seattle, Washington, May 3, 1875. There he opened a law office, and for the remainder of his life--a period of fifty years--his career was synonymous with the history of the city.
In the same year he was elected probate judge of King County, and, being reelected, served till 1880 but declined a third term.
He was prominent as a successful advocate, but gradually withdrew from court work, confining his professional work to consultations and associating himself more with business enterprise. When the anti-Chinese troubles arose in 1886 he defended the Chinese at the risk of his life, narrowly escaping being lynched by an excited mob.
In 1888 he temporarily accepted the appointment of chief justice of the supreme court of Washington Territory in order to relieve a critical situation which had arisen owing to the sudden deaths of two successive occupants of that position, but retained office only until April 1889. He organized the Seattle & Walla Walla Railway and the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway to connect with the Union Pacific and the Canadian Pacific railroads, the accomplishment of which in 1892 gave Seattle the transportation facilities she needed.
In 1893 when J. J. Hill was planning to extend the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway to the Pacific Coast as the Great Northern Railroad, Burke was retained as general western counsel to the company.
He also actively interested himself in stimulating trade between Seattle and China and Japan, paying several visits to those countries and acting as counsel for the Nippon Yusen Kaisha Steamship Company.
In 1907 he withdrew from practise and in 1909 he was offered by President Taft the position of minister to China but declined. He was a candidate for the Senate at the ensuing election, but suffered defeat in the general Republican debacle. In 1910 he was appointed a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He died December 4, 1925, in New York City.
Judge Thomas Burke was probably the most dedicated lawyer in the history of Seattle, Washington, who was practicing in his law office for a period of fifty years. His career even became synonymous with the history of the city. Burke was also one of the originators of the Alaska-Yukon Exposition and went in 1908 as a commissioner on its behalf to Japan and China. He conducted for the Great Northern Railroad all the negotiations relative to the acquisition of real estate, the tunnel under Seattle, and the right of way through the state. Burke was a sound lawyer, but his professional success was largely due to his great business ability and foresight. His services to the city of Seattle were fundamental, and he was recognized as preeminently her foremost citizen. His major achievement was that he gave Seattle the transportation facilities it needed by the establishment of the Seattle & Walla Walla Railway and the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern Railway to connect with the Union Pacific and the Canadian Pacific railroads. Another Burke's professional achievement was that he was appointed a trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1910.
A strong Democrat, he was the party nominee for delegate to Congress in 1880 and 1882, but was unable to overcome the Republican majority.
In politics he refused to follow Bryan in 1896, was active in campaigning throughout the state on behalf of McKinley, and shortly afterward joined the Republican party.
Small of stature, unassuming and genial in company, he had great force of character and an infinite capacity for hard work, which, joined to a natural felicity of speech and intense earnestness, made him a dominating figure in public affairs.
He was married in 1876 to Caroline E. , daughter of J. J. McGilvra of Seattle.
1857–1932
Burke was a partner with Bostonian Frank Osgood and Seattle pioneer David Denny in the city's first horse-drawn streetcars (1884).
Burke was the intimate friend and adviser of Hill, and it was mainly due to his efforts that Seattle was made the Pacific terminus of the new trans-continental line.
