Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1885 — MEN OF NOTE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MEN OF NOTE.

Hon. Alfred P. Edgerton, One of the dvil-SerTlce Commissioners. Alfred P. Edgerton. of Indiana, who has been made Chairman of the Civil-Service Commission.is a native pf Plattsbnrg,N. Y., and is now seventy-seven years of age. He was in early life a clerk in a mercantile honse in New York City, but while yet a young man went to Northern Ohio as the agent of the Northern Land Company. He established a law office at Hicksville, Defiance County, at which 140,000 acres of land were sold. In 1852, Mr. Edgerton

found himself the owner of 40,000 acres in ( Northern Ohio, which he sold to actual settlers on the most liberal terms as regarded payments. He reserved for himself a country-seat near Hicksville, which he still holds, and where he resides part of each year.' In 1845 he was elected to the State Senate of Ohio. Here he opposed Alfred Kelley, leader of the Whigs in that body, and brought himself into wide repute thereby. In his official . action he evinced such knowledge of the finances of the State that he was strongly urged for Governor by leading Democrats. In 1848 he was a delegate-at-large to the Baltimore Convention. In 1850 —• after the close of his term in the State Senate—he was elected a member of Congress from the Toledo District, and re-elected in 1852, and was the Chairman of the Committee on Claims of that body. In 1853 he was elected by the Board of Fund Commissioners the Financial Agent of the State of Ohio tb reside at New York City. In 1856 Mr. Edgerton was Chairman of the National Democratic Convention at Cincinnati. In 1859 he was very appropriately appointed by the Ohio Legislature one of the committee to investigate frauds upon the State Treasury, and made an elaborate report, exposing the frauds and their authors. In 1857 he removed to Fort Wayne, but retained his citizenship in Ohio until 1862. Two years later he was a delegate-at-large to the Chicago Convention. In 1859, in connection with the late Pliny Hoagland and Hugh McCulloch (late Secretary of the Treasury), he became lessee of the Indiana canals, and then general manager. In 1868 he was nominated on the ticket with Hon. T. A. Hendricks for Lieutenant-governor of Indiana, and was defeated by less than 1,000 votes. He declined the nomination of the O’Conor Democrats for Governor in 1872. By appointment of ex-Governor Porter, Mr. Egerton is now a Director of Purdue University. He has been engaged in many successful business enterprises, is in easy circumstances, and is a practical student of public affairs. He is a man of such high integrity that he paid over $500,000 to the creditors of his brother-in-law some years years ago, although his legal obligation was, at the outside, $200,000. He was for many an intimate friend and.associate of Chief Justice Waite, who, with Senator Henry B. Payne, Governor Gray of Indiana, Vice President Hendricks, and many leading citizens of Ohio and Indiana, warmly indorsed him as possessing qualities peculiarly fitting him for the work of the Civil-Ser-vice Commission. He is in fullest sympathy with the reform.