Joseph Gary

Joseph Gary was born in Potsdam, New York. As a young man he worked as a carpenter, following the trade of his father. He then moved to St. Louis in 1843 to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1844. He practiced for five years in Springfield, Missouri, then moved to Las Vegas in 1849 and established a practice there. At the time, Las Vegas was a small settlement in what was then the State of Deseret. After three years, he moved to San Francisco, California, and then to Berlin, Wisconsin. He finally settled in Chicago in 1856, and remained there for the rest of his life.

Gary practiced law until 1863, when he was elected judge of the Superior Court of Cook County. He presided over the Haymarket Riot case in 1886, sentencing anarchists August Spies, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Albert Parsons, Adolph Fischer, George Engel, and Louis Lingg to death, and sentencing Oscar Neebe to 15 years.

There was no evidence that any of the defendants had any connection with the bombing. Gary allowed them to be convicted on the theory that their speeches had encouraged the unknown bomber to commit the act. During the trial, anarchist sympathizers frequently made death threats against him, raising his general popularity.

In 1888 he was appointed as one of the three judges of the Illinois Appellate Court in the first district—Cook County—by the members of the Illinois Supreme Court. He served eight years assigned to the Appellate Court before being dismissed by the Illinois Supreme Court in June 1897, along with nearly every other appellate judge in the state.[1]

He resumed his work at the Superior Court of Cook County, and later that year presided over the sensational murder trial of Adolph Luetgert. Both the Republicans and the Democrats nominated him each time he ran for judge, a position he held continuously from 1863 to 1906. He was still active as a judge at the time of his death, the oldest judge on his court and one of the oldest judges in the country at the time. He held court on the morning before his death, became ill the next morning, and died at home just after noon.

In April 1907, a special election was held to fill the remaining four years of his term. Republican William H. McSurely narrowly defeated Democrat William Emmett Dever.[2][3][4]

Joseph Gary was the eldest of five children born to Eli Bush Gary and his wife Frances O. (née Easton). Eli Gary was a carpenter and joiner who served as a volunteer in the War of 1812. Joseph Gary's younger brother, George Gary, was a notable politician and judge in Wisconsin.[5]

In 1855, Joseph Gary married Elizabeth Jane Swelting, at Berlin, Wisconsin.[6]

• "Judge Gary Dead.", The New York Times, November 1, 1906.