CM Easterday

C.M. Easterday (b. 1854 - d. 1918) Vital Statistics. Judge Charles Milton Easterday1 was born December 17, 1854 in Nokomis, Illinois to Martin Van Buren and Margaret J. (Hustin) Easterday. He served as a Pierce County Court Judge2 from 1909-1918. Personal and Professional History. Judge Easterday was educated in the public schools of Illinois and Nebraska. He attended Carthage College in Illinois for two years and spent an additional two years at the State University of Nebraska. In 1879, he graduated from the State University of Iowa with a LL.B. degree. He practiced law in Tecumseh, Nebraska for five years before moving to Tacoma, Washington in March 1884. While still in Nebraska, Judge Easterday married Miss Minnie O. Locke. Together they had five children. From 1891 to 1899 Judge Easterday served four sessions3 in the State Senate. He was a Republican until 1896 when he changed party affiliation to the Silver Republican Party.4 In 1908 Judge Easterday was elected Judge of the Superior Court of Pierce County. A widely circulated petition for his re-election, signed by practically all the members of the bar in Tacoma, contained this tribute to him: “Judge Easterday has lived among us twenty-nine years. Of these twenty-five were spent in active practice of the law and four have been spent on the bench. For four seasons he was a member of the state senate, serving as chairman of the judiciary committee during two of them. He drafted and procured the passage of many important laws. For four years he was one of the regents of the state university and while serving as such prevented the sale of the old university site for $200,000, then offered for it. This site comprises ten acres, nearly four double blocks, in the business district of Seattle, and was subsequently leased for fifty years, yielding an annual income of $50,000 to the university. Aside from his ability on the bench, his associates in the bar of Pierce County paid a high tribute to his character as a man of the purest private life, of unquestionable honesty and integrity, of the most kindly disposition, learned and fair-minded, and one of the ablest, most just and best judges of the state.” Judge Easterday died December 4, 1918 while in his third term as Superior Court Judge. 1 Judge Easterday’s maternal line went back five generations to Daniel Drew, one of the first settlers in America, who helped foster the growth of the United States. 2 Judge Easterday served in Department 1 from 1909 to 1910 and in Department 3 from 1911 to 1918. 3 At that time the legislature only met every other year. 4 The Silver Republican Party was a United States political party in the 1890s. At that time the parties were divided over the nation’s money system. Should the United States support its currency with gold or with gold and silver? This became the main issue in the Presidential election of 1896. Silver Republicans supported Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan over Republican nominee William McKinley who supported maintaining the gold standard. After 1900, the Silver Republican Party was on the decline and most of its members rejoined the Republican Party. .

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