century association biographical archive

Earliest Members of the Century Association

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Chester B. McLaughlin

Judge, Supreme Court

Centurion, 1900–1929

Full Name Chester Bentine McLaughlin

Born 10 February 1856 in Moriah, New York

Died 12 May 1929 in Albany, New York

Buried Moriah Union Cemetery, Moriah, New York

Proposed by Henry R. Beekman and William G. Davies

Elected 3 February 1900 at age forty-three

Century Memorial

Judge Chester B. McLaughlin served as justice of the higher courts of New York State during the long consecutive period of thirty years. He had in fact occupied lower or higher positions on the bench from 1890, when he became a county judge and surrogate after barely two years of legal practice and at the age of thirty-four, to 1926, when he retired from the Court of Appeals because he had reached the age limit. This is a somewhat remarkable career, especially when so prolonged a tenure of judicial office was dependent on reasonably frequent popular re-elections, and when such repeated endorsement by nominating conventions and voting electorate was a tribute, not to political activities but to distinguished service on the bench.

Alexander Dana Noyes
1930 Century Association Yearbook