Reminiscences of the civil war: comp. from the war correspondence of Colonel William P. Lyon and from personal letters and diary by Mrs. Adelia C. Lyon
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William Penn Lyon was an American legislator, jurist, and soldier. He served as chief justice at Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1892 to 1894.
Background
William Penn Lyon was born on October 28, 1822 of Quaker parents at Chatham, New York, United States. His father, Isaac Lyon, was descended from Thomas Lyon who was born in England about 1621 and died in Connecticut. His mother, Eunice (Coffin) Lyon, was descended from Tristram and Dionis Coffin, English Quakers who emigrated to America in 1642 and settled in Nantucket. William was the third child in a family of ten children. The father conducted a small country store for some years but suffering financial reverses moved with his family to the town of Hudson (later Lyons), Walworth County, Wisconsin, in 1841. William grew up in a community in which the Quaker tradition was predominant.
Education
Lyon attended a district and select school, but his formal education, meager as it was, he supplemented by extensive reading. Under the guidance of his mother, who seems to have been a woman of great wisdom and unusual foresight, he began the study of law by reading Blackstone's Commentaries, Cowan's Treatise, and Chitty's Pleading. He studied in the law offices of Judge George Gale and Judge Charles M. Baker and was admitted to the bar of Walworth County in the spring of 1846.
Career
About 1846 Lyon was elected a justice of the peace and later town clerk. His income was sixty dollars for the first year. He later practised law at Burlington and Racine, served as district attorney of Racine County, 1855-1858, and was a member of the Assembly as well as its speaker for two terms, 1859-1860.
In September 1861 he entered military service as captain of Company K, 8th (Eagle) Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers. In 1862 he was commissioned colonel in the 13th Wisconsin. Shortly after his discharge he was breveted a brigadier-general of the United States volunteers to date from October 26, 1865.
In the spring of 1865, while he was still in the service, he was elected judge of the first judicial circuit, then second in importance to the fourth circuit, which included Milwaukee County. Upon his return to Racine, he entered upon his duties as circuit judge and five years later in 1871 he was appointed justice of the supreme court to fill the unexpired term of Byron Paine. He was elected to the same office in 1871, 1877, and 1883, and served until his voluntary retirement on January 1, 1894.
For the last two years he was by virtue of seniority, chief justice. Although at the time of his retirement Lyon had passed three score and ten years, he was two years later called to serve as a member of the state board of control, governing penal and charitable institutions, and served in that capacity for seven years. Upon his retirement his services were commended by Governor Robert M. La Follette. He passed his declining years at Edenvale, California, where he died in the ninety-first year of his age.
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Personality
Lyon was modest, of a gentle but firm spirit. It never occurred to him to set the stage, or in any way seek to win public acclaim. Perhaps no public man in the history of the state had fewer enemies or was more generally beloved and respected.
Connections
On November 18, 1847, Lyon was married to Adelia Caroline Duncombe, daughter of Dr. E. E. Duncombe of St. Thomas, Ontario. He had a son and a daughter.