Timothy P. Redfield

Timothy Redfield was the fifth child of Dr. Peleg Redfield and Hannah Parker, a merchant's daughter.[1] In 1806 the family had moved to Coventry in the frontier region of northern Vermont. His father served as town clerk for many years and also represented Coventry in the state legislature from 1812 to 1820. Timothy graduated from Dartmouth College in 1836 with honors, being elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He immediately started to study law in the office of his brother Isaac Fletcher Redfield, who was elected that year to the Vermont Supreme Court.

In 1838 he was admitted to the bar, and from 1838 to 1848 practiced law in Irasburg, the county seat of Orleans County, just to the south of Coventry. He represented Irasburg in the Vermont House of Representatives in 1839 and Orleans County in the Vermont Senate in 1848. Redfield was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for governor in 1851, 1863, and 1864.[2] He served on the Vermont State Board of Education from 1860 to 1862. From 1870 to 1884 he served on the Vermont Supreme Court. William H. Walker was named to succeed him, and in 1884 he was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, losing to Justin Smith Morrill.

A portrait of Judge Redfield hangs in the Washington County Courthouse in Montpelier.[3]

Redfield also served on the boards of directors or as an officer of some Vermont organizations. He was one of the founding directors of the National Life Insurance Company in 1848 and served on its board for forty years. He served the Vermont Mutual Fire Insurance Company (now the Vermont Mutual Insurance Group) as director and as vice-president.[4] He was a trustee of Norwich University from 1853 to 1873.[5]

Timothy Redfield married Helen W. Grannis in 1840; they had four children; twin boys who died in infancy in 1853, Frederick (1842-1865), who only lived to be 22, and daughter Alice Melinda (1848-1935), who married a musician named Anthony Phillips. Timothy Redfield died in Chicago where Phillips was employed.

Timothy Redfield's older brother Isaac (1804-1876) served on the Vermont Supreme Court from 1836 to 1859 and as Chief Judge from 1852 to 1859; he was also a respected legal scholar, writing works on railroad law and other subjects. The governor, senator, and Secretary of War Redfield Proctor (1831-1908) was a much younger first cousin of Timothy Redfield, the youngest son of his mother's sister.[6]