Home County: Pike
Term of Service on the Supreme Court of Missouri: October 1866- November 1868
Judge Thomas James Clark Fagg was born July 15, 1822, near Charlottesville in Albemarle County, Virginia.[i] He completed college preparatory coursework at the University of Virginia.[ii] In 1836, he relocated with his parents to Pike County, Missouri, and settled near Prairieville.[iii] In April 1837, he attended Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois.[iv] By 1842, he had returned to Missouri.[v]
During September 1843, Fagg joined the law office of Gilchrist Porter in Bowling Green, Missouri, and studied with Porter until Fagg passed the state bar in May 1845.[vi] Fagg then practiced law with James O. Broadhead in Bowling Green for a year.[vii] In 1848, Fagg was instrumental in establishing a probate court in Pike County.[viii]
In November 1850, was elected the probate judge of Pike County, and he was reelected four years later,[ix] serving as Pike County probate judge until March 30, 1855.[x] In January 1862, Fagg was appointed circuit judge in the Third Judicial Circuit (which then included Lincoln, Montgomery, Pike, Ralls, St. Charles and Warren counties)[xi] by acting Governor Willard P. Hall.[xii] In the fall of 1863, Fagg was elected to the position.[xiii] While serving as judge in Pike County in the Third Judicial Circuit, he heard what, on appeal, resulted in the 1866 United States Supreme Court decision Cummings v. Missouri, which involved loyalty oaths.[xiv]
Governor Thomas C. Fletcher appointed Judge Fagg on October 1, 1866,[xv] to the Supreme Court of Missouri to fill the vacancy left by the death of Judge Walter Lovelace. [xvi] Judge Fagg was with the Court until November 1868,[xvii] after which he returned to private practice.[xviii] In Louisiana, Missouri, he practiced with Colonel D. P. Dyer and W.H. Biggs until 1882.[xix] Then he moved to St. Louis to work in the insurance business.[xx] In 1890, Fagg moved back to Louisiana, and formed a partnership with David A. Ball, continuing in practice until he retired in1898.[xxi]
Judge Fagg died October 26, 1914, in St. Louis, Missouri.[xxii] He was buried October 28, 1914, in Louisiana, Missouri.[xxiii]
[i] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, An Encyclopedia of Useful Information, and a Compendium of Actual Facts, (Des Moines, Iowa: Mills & Company, 1883), 394. See also: “Thomas James Clark Fagg,” Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1967, accessed on July 10 2018. Information courtesy of the Missouri Digital Heritage Website, Missouri State Archives, available from https://www.sos.mo.gov.
[ii] “Thomas James Clark[e] Fagg,” Portrait and Biographical Record of Marion, Ralls, and Pike Counties, Missouri, containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the Counties (Chicago, IL: C.O. Owen & Co., 1895), 123, accessed on July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of Missouri County Histories, Missouri Digital Heritage Website. Missouri State Archives, available from https://www.sos.mo.gov
[iii] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 394. See also: “Judge and Mrs. Fagg Wedded Fifty-Five Years and Daughter Twenty-Two,” The St. Louis Republic, (St. Louis, MO), November 13, 1902, page 14, image 14, accessed on July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of Chronicling America, Library of Congress, available from; https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov
[iv] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 395. See also: Howard Louis Conard, ed. Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, A Compendium of History and Biography for Ready Reference, Encyclopedia Vol. II (St. Louis, MO: The Southern Book Company, 1901), 409.
[v] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 395.
[vi] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 396.
[vii] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 396. See also: Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 409.
[viii] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 396.
[ix] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 397. See also: Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 409-410.
[x] “First Probate Judge,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, An Encyclopedia of Useful Information, and a Compendium of Actual Facts, 180.
[xi] Judge Thomas J.C. Fagg, “The Pike County Circuit Court,” Missouri Historical Review Vol. 1, No. 3 (April, 1907), 194, accessed on July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri, available from; http://shsmo.org
[xii] “From Jefferson City,” Liberty Tribune, (Liberty, MO), January 24, 1862, accessed on July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage. Missouri State Archives, available from; https://www.sos.mo.gov See also: Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 410.
[xiii] “Thomas J.C. Fagg,” The History of Pike County, Missouri, 398.
[xiv] “Juror’s Test Oath,” The Saline County Progress, (Marshall, MO), May 14, 1869, accessed on July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri Newspaper Database, available from http://shsmo.org. See also: John William Wallace, reporter, “Cummings v. The State of Missouri,” Cases Argued and Adjudged in The Supreme Court of the United States, December Term 1866, (Washington D.C: W.H. & O.H. Morrison, 1870), pages 277-332.
[xv] Michael K. McGrath, Secretary of State, ed., Official Directory of Missouri, (St. Louis, MO: John J. Stationary & Printing Company, 1885), 134. See also: Liberty Tribune Staff, Liberty Tribune, (Liberty, MO), October 26, 1866, accessed July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of Missouri Digital Heritage Website, Missouri State Archives, available from; https://www.sos.mo.gov See also: Grace Gilmore Avery and Floyd C. Shoemaker, eds., The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, Vol. IV (Columbia, MO: The State Historical Society of Missouri, 1924), 53. See also: John F. Darby, “Supreme Court of Missouri,” St. Joseph Dollar Herald, January 15, 1880, accessed on July 23, 2018. Information courtesy of the Missouri Digital Heritage Website. Missouri State Archives, available from; https://www.sos.mo.gov
[xvi] Horace W. Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, (Boston, MA: The Boston Book Company: 1891), 158. See also: Liberty Tribune Staff, Liberty Tribune, October 26, 1866. See also: Avery and Shoemaker, eds., The Messages and Proclamations of the Governors of the State of Missouri, Vol. IV, 53. [To cross reference Governor Fletcher dates of term as Governor].
[xvii] McGrath, Official Directory of Missouri for 1885, 134. See also: The Osceola Herald Staff, “Judges of Supreme Court,” The Osceola Herald, (Osceola, MO), July 23, 1868, accessed on July 18, 2018. Information courtesy of The State Historical Society of Missouri Newspaper Database, available from http://shsmo.org
[xviii] Horace W. Fuller, ed., The Green Bag, 182.
[xix] Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 410.
[xx] Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 410.
[xxi] Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of Missouri, 410.
[xxii] “Thomas James Clark Fagg,” Missouri Death Certificates.
[xxiii] “Thomas James Clark Fagg,” Missouri Death Certificates.
Biographical information authored by Ms. Megan Vancil, 2018, University of Missouri-Columbia.