William B. McConnell (November 15, 1849 – August 4, 1931)[1][2] was a justice of the Dakota Territorial Supreme Court from 1886 to 1889.[3]
Born in Greene County, Pennsylvania, McConnell received an undergraduate degree from Waynesburg College and then read law under Judge Morris, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[2]
He moved to the Dakota Territory, and in 1885 President Grover Cleveland nominated McConnell to a seat on the Supreme Court of the Dakota Territory vacated by the expiration of the commission of Sanford A. Hudson,[2][4] with the United States Senate confirming the appointment on January 20, 1896.[5] McConnell remained in that office until the Dakota Territory was admitted to the union as two new states of the United States, in 1889.[1][2] McConnell was then elected as the first judge of the Third Judicial District of North Dakota, serving in that capacity from 1889 to 1896.[1][2] By the early 1900s, McConnell moved to Fremont, Ohio, where he remained a "prominent citizen... for more than 30 years".[1]
McConnell had a wife, Emma, with whom he had a daughter.[1] McConnell died in Sandusky County, Ohio, at the age of 81.[1][2]
References[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f "Judge M'Connell To Be Buried Thursday", The Sandusky Register (August 6, 1931), p. 2.
- ^ a b c d e f https://www.ndcourts.gov/william-b-mcconnell
- ^ The South Dakota Supreme Court: A Photographic History (2015), p. 3.
- ^ "News Notes", Nebraska Nugget (May 19, 1885), p. 3.
- ^ "Dakota Confirmations", The Saint Paul Globe (January 21, 1886), p. 5.