Horace Harmon Lurton
Louisville Courier Journal, 13 July 1914, page 1
Atlantic City, NJ-July 12-Associate Justice Horace Harmon Lurton,
of the United States Supreme Court, died suddenly here today of heart failure
super induced by cardiac asthma. He was 70 years old.
Born in 1844 at Newport, Campbell County, Ky. Justice Lurton was attending the county schools when the Civil War began. Though only 17 years old, he enlisted in the Confederate army and became a trooper under the famous Gen. Morgan. Three years later he was captured and imprisoned. A personal appeal by his to President Lincoln brought about his release on parole, and when the war closed he was studying law at Cumberland University. He graduated in 1867 and began practicing law in Tennessee.
After serving four years as a Tennessee Division Chancellor, he returned to the practice of law in 1878 and eight years later was elected a Judge of the Tennessee Supreme Court, of which he became Chief Justice in 1893. The same year President Cleveland appointed him Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of the United States.
As a Federal jurist Judge Lurton was closely associated with former President Taft, then a Circuit Judge, and when the vacancy on the Supreme Court occurred in 1909 President Taft appointed him to the post. He took office January 3, 1910, being the fourth Confederate soldier to become a member of the country's highest court.
The Justice, who came here on July 1, was in his usual health before retiring last night and had taken his customary evening outing on teh board walk. Shortly after midnight he complained of feeling ill and although his physician, Dr. Ruffin, who arrived yesterday from Washington, was immediately summoned, Justice Lurton died at 5 o'clock this morning. His wife and son Horace H Lurton Jr. of Nashville, were at the bedside. Mrs. Horace Van Deventer, a daughter and her husband arrived tonight from Knoxville and other members of the family are expected tomorrow.
The body will be taken to Clarksville Tenn. for interment, the funeral party leaving here at 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.