Donald Allison Adams, who in the practice of law and in the business of insurance has wisely used the intellectual powers with which nature endowed him, has won distinction in business law and as one of the instructors in Yale University. In fact, in many ways he has left the impress of his individuality and his ability upon the educational, professional and business life of New Haven. He was born at Windsor. Wisconsin, September 7, 1881, and is a son of the Rev. Allison Dwight and Sarah (Lawson) Adams. The father was born at Union Grove, Wisconsin, while the mother is a native of Oneida county, New York. Both are descended from early Connecticut families. The paternal grandfather, Henry Dwight Adams, was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, and the great-grandfather at Farmington, Connecticut.
     Rev. Allison D. Adams was graduated from Beloit College at Beloit, Wisconsin, in 1871, and subsequently attended the Yale Divinity School, from which he was graduated in 1875. He then entered the ministry of the Congregational church and occupied various pulpits in Wisconsin and other states but returned to the east and is now living retired in Wallingford, Connecticut. His wife, who was reared in Oneida county, New York, was a graduate of Rockford College at Rockford. Illinois, not far from Beloit, and there she met and married Rev. Adams. They have three children: Ellie F., residing with her parents at Wallingford: Genevieve P., the wife of Professor W. F. Lasby of the University of Minnesota and a resident of Minneapolis; and Donald A., of this review.
     The last named began his education in the public schools of Wisconsin and continued his studies in Carleton College at Northfield, Minnesota, in which he completed the academic course by graduation with the class of 1903. In preparation for a professional career he entered Yale and completed his law course with the class of 1908. He was a member of the Yale-Princeton debate team in May, 1906. He began practice in New York city and won success as a practitioner in the courts there, but in 1911 he removed to New Haven and again had no difficulty in winning a large and distinctively representative clientage. His success in a business and professional way affords the best evidence of his capabilities. He has been called to the position of instructor in business law in the new graduate course in business administration in Sheffield Scientific School, which course was established in 1915, and through the intervening period has been a member of the faculty.
     On the 19th of May, 1910, in New Haven. Mr. Adams was married to Miss Edith Marion Nichols, a daughter of Abel Johnson and Marion (Hotchkiss) Nichols, the former a well known banker of this county and both representatives of old Connecticut families. Mr. and Mrs. Adams have two children: Henry Sage, born September 9, 1914; and Eleanor, born May 16, 1916.
     Mr. Adams is a member of the Automobile Club, of which he is the secretary, and he belongs to the Graduates Club, Phi Delta Phi, and Corby Court of Yale, and to the Center church, of which he is a deacon. He has also been an active factor in the political life of New Haven and few men are better informed concerning the issues and questions of the day. He is a member of the board of aldermen from the tenth ward and is treasurer of the Civic Federation of New Haven. In a word, he is studying closely those questions which have to do with the general interests of society in all economic, political and sociological relations and he keeps abreast with the best thinking men of the age.