Terms of service at the Supreme Court of Missouri: August 1859 - March 1862, November 1872 - June 1873
Judge Ephraim Brevard Ewing was born in May 1819 in Todd County, Kentucky.[i] Soon after his birth, his family left Kentucky and moved to Missouri. They moved to Boonville, in Cooper County, in 1820.[ii] The family finally settled in Lafayette County in 1831.[iii] Ewing was educated at Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky, and studied law in the office of Judge Buckner, a well-known lawyer in Kentucky at the time, upon the completion of his studies at Cumberland College.[iv] Following his studies with Judge Buckner, Ewing moved to Richmond, Missouri, in Ray County, Missouri, and completed his studies as an apprentice to his brother, Robert Ewing.[v]
Judge Ewing was admitted to the bar in 1842 and opened a practice with his brother in Ray County.[vi] In the winter of 1846-1847, Ewing was appointed as the secretary of the state senate.[vii] In 1849, he was appointed as secretary of state by Governor Austin King.[viii] In 1857, Ewing was appointed to the position of attorney general. He resigned in August 1859, when he was elected to the Supreme Court of Missouri, following the resignation of Judge Richardson.[ix]
In 1862, the bench of the Supreme Court of Missouri was vacated after the passage of a constitutional amendment at the state convention, with regard to the filing of a loyalty oath.[x] After serving on the bench until the March 1862 term,[xi] Judge Ewing returned to private practice in Jefferson City.[xii] In 1864, he moved to St. Louis.[xiii] In 1870, after practicing in the area for several years, he was elected as a circuit judge of the St. Louis circuit court.[xiv] He resigned from that court in 1872 and was reelected to the Supreme Court of Missouri.[xv] Judge Ewing’s second tenure at the Court was cut short, however, when he became ill.
He died June 21, 1873, a few months after resuming his seat on the bench.[xvi]
[i] William Van Ness Bay, “Ephraim B. Ewing,” Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, (St. Louis, MO: F.H. Thomas and Company, 1878), 172.
[ii] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[iii] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[iv] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[v] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[vi] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[vii] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 172.
[viii] L.C. Krauthoff, “The Supreme Court of Missouri,” Horace W. Fuller, ed. “The Green Bag, Vol. III, (Boston, MA: Boston Book Co., 1891), 180.
[ix] Horace W. Fuller, ed. Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 180. See also: Charleston Courier, Friday July 29, 1859, page 3 column 1. Information courtesy the State Historical Society of Missouri-Columbia Newspaper Database, accessed July 2017, available from http://shsmo.org/newspaper/.
[x] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri Vol. XXXI (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp & Co., 1862), preface. William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 173. See also Kenneth H. Winn, Missouri Law and the American Conscience: Historic Rights & Wrongs (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2016), 91.
[xi] Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp & CO., 1862), 473.
[xii] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 173.
[xiii] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 173.
[xiv] Horace W. Fuller, ed. Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 180.
[xv] William Van Ness Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 173.
[xvi] Horace W. Fuller, ed. Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri, 180.
Biographical information authored by Mr. Matt Orf, 2017, University of Missouri-Columbia.