1802-1875
Ira Harris served in 1850, 1858. Born in Charleston, Montgomery County, N.Y., on May 31, 1802. Union College graduate, 1824. Member, state assembly, 1845-1846, and constitutional convention, 1846, where he advanced amendments securing married women’s property rights. Elected state senator, 1846, resigned to become a state supreme court justice, third judicial district, in 1847, reelected in 1851 and served until 1859. U.S. Senator, 1861-1866. Close personal friend of President Abraham Lincoln. Member of New York State constitutional convention in 1867 and professor at Albany law school, 1867-1875. Died Dec. 2, 1875 in Albany, N.Y. See 1 McAdam, History of the Bench and Bar of New York, New York History Co. (1897), p. 354. Obituary, The New York Times, Dec. 3, 1875; http://bioguide.congress.gov. His portrait is hanging in the Court of Appeals anteroom, south wall.
This biography appears in The Judges of the New York Court of Appeals: A Biographical History, ed. Hon. Albert M. Rosenblatt (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007). It has not been updated since publication.