William J. Bacon

Bacon was born the son of Ezekiel Bacon and Abigail Smith Bacon; and the grandson of John Bacon, in Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. He moved with his family to Utica, New York, in 1815. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1822. Then he studied law at Litchfield Law School, and studied for a year in the law office of Joseph and Charles P. Kirkland. He was admitted to the bar in 1824, and commenced practice in Utica. He married Eliza Kirkland on October 23, 1828 and subsequent to her death in 1872, he was married to Susan Sloan Gillette in 1874.[1]

Bacon was appointed City Attorney of Utica in 1837, and was a member of the New York State Assembly in 1850. He was elected a trustee of Hamilton College in 1851, and he was trustee of Hamilton College from 1856 until his death. He was a justice of the New York Supreme Court (5th District) from 1854 to 1869,[2] and was ex officio a judge of the New York Court of Appeals in 1860 and 1868.

Elected as a Republican to the 45th United States Congress, Bacon served as U.S. Representative for the twenty-third district of New York from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1879.[3] Afterwards he resumed the practice of law.

Bacon died in Utica, Oneida County, New York, on July 3, 1889 (age 86 years, 135 days). He is interred at Forest Hill Cemetery (Utica, New York), Utica, New York.[4]

• United States Congress. "William J. Bacon (id: B000020)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 239, 256 and 351; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)
• Court of Appeals judges