Biography
Eugene Casserly was born on November 13, 1820, in Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ireland, and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1822, settling in New York. Casserly's father prepared him for a college education and he attended and graduated from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.. He subsequently studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1844 and began practicing in New York City. Casserly became editor of Freeman's Journal and contributed to several newspapers in various cities.
Before moving to San Francisco, California, in 1850, Casserly served on the New York City corporation counsel from 1846 to 1847. Upon moving to California, he published the Public Balance, the True Balance and the Standard, and was elected State printer in 1851 before retiring from journalism and resuming his law practice. In 1854, he married Teresa, daughter of deceased merchant John Doyle. Together, they had three children, two sons and a daughter.
Casserly was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1868, where he served from March 1869 until his resignation on November 29, 1873. In the U.S. Senate, he served as chairman of the Committee on Pacific Railroads during the 42nd Congress and the Committee on Engrossed Bills during the 42nd Congress and 43rd Congress.
After resigning from the United States Senate, Casserly resumed practicing law in San Francisco and served as a member of the California Constitutional Convention in 1878 and 1879. Casserly died in San Francisco on June 14, 1883, and was interred in Calvary Cemetery. He was subsequently re-interred in Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, California, in 1904.
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Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)