Honorable Mark Bangs

He was born in Hawley, Franklin County, Massachusetts, January 9, 1822, his father being Zenas Bangs. The latter originated on Cape Cod; settled early in western Massachusetts, where he raised a large family, of which Mark was the youngest child. His wife died in the fall of 1827, and he himself in the spring of 1828, leaving our subject at once without parents and patrimony. In the autumn of 1828 Mark emigrated with an older brother to western New York, and at the age of seven was put out to live with a farmer of Monroe county, near Rochester. From the age of fourteen to that of eighteen he worked upon a farm for an older brother, about three years of which were occupied in clearing up and opening a farm in the wilds of Michigan. At eighteen he returned to the state of New York, worked one summer at farming; taught school in the winter; spent a year at school in Rochester. He reached Chicago in October, 1844, remained there two or three months; became disgusted with its location and general appearance, and left for the more central portions of the state, where he spent the time for two years or more in running a threshing machine, farming and teaching. In the spring of 1847 he went back to Massachusetts; taught a few classes in the English and classical school of his brother in Springfield, while he read law in the office of Judge Henry Morris. In the autumn of 1849 he returned to Illinois, settled at Lacon, Marshall County, and spent one year as clerk and bookkeeper in a dry goods store, meantime pursuing his legal studies. At the end of that year he entered the law office of Ira I. Fenn, of Lacon; was soon admitted to practice, and became a partner of Mr. Fenn, under the firm name of Fenn and Bangs. This was about 1851. January 1, 1852, Mr. Bangs was married to Miss Harriet Cornelia Pomeroy, second daughter of Deacon Samuel Pomeroy. In March 1859, he was elected judge of the twenty-third judicial circuit of Illinois. In the fall of 1862 Mr. Bangs formed a partnership with Thomas M. Shaw, now state senator from that district, which continued for fifteen years, during which time the firm of Bangs and Shaw, and later Bangs, Shaw and Edwards, held a leading position at the bar and in the legal business of Central Illinois. In June 1862, Mr. Bangs, with four other citizens of the state, originated and set in operation the celebrated Union League of America, of which he was chosen president, and he spent much of the year following, in organizing branches and granting charters, among which was a charter for the organization of the National League at Washington, District of Columbia. In the autumn of 1869 he was elected to the state senate. In February 1873, he was appointed by Governor Beveridge, judge of the circuit court of Putnam, Marshall, Woodford and Tazewell counties. In December 1875, he was called without previous knowledge or solicitation on his part by a unanimous request of the republican delegation in congress; to the position of United States attorney for the northern district of Illinois, which position he held until September 1, 1879, at which time he resigned. October 20, 1880, Judge Bangs entered upon a law practice in Chicago with Major Joseph Kirkland under the firm of Bangs and Kirkland, which still (1882) continues.

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