 Joseph
Rucker Lamar was born on October 14, 1857 in Georgia. He was a member of
two distinguished Georgia families, the Ruckers and the Lamars. Lamar
was raised in Augusta, Georgia, where he spent most of his life. He was
a childhood friend of future President Woodrow Wilson. Lamar graduated
from Bethany College in 1877. The next year, after a brief time as a
student in the law school at Washington and Lee University in Virginia,
and after reading law, Lamar was admitted to the practice of law in
Georgia. He successfully practiced law in Augusta, and was by the
mid-1890s asked to aid in the revision of Georgia law. Although one of
three commissioners, Lamar was solely responsible for the volume that
revised Georgia civil law, a revision enacted by the Georgia
legislature. Lamar served on the Georgia Supreme Court between 1903 and
1905. In 1910, he and
Willis Van Devanter were nominated to the Court after the retirement
of
William Moody and the death of Chief Justice
Melville Fuller. (Then-Associate Justice
Edward
White was nominated to succeed Fuller as Chief Justice.) Although
Lamar was well known in Georgia, and though he had argued several cases
before the Supreme Court, Lamar was unknown to President
William
Howard Taft until 1909, when Taft, while vacationing in Augusta, met
Lamar. Lamar took office on January 3, 1911.
Lamar's term in office was largely
forgettable. He died on January 2, 1916, at age 58.
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