BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, BELMONT COUNTY, OHIO

"History of the Upper Ohio Valley" Vol. II, 1890.

Presented by Linda Fluharty from hard copies provided
by Mary Staley & Phyllis Slater.


Pages 629-630.

HON. LORENZO DANFORD

Hon. Lorenzo Danford, well-known among the senior members of the bar of
Belmont county, has for many years been prominent in the public affairs of
the upper Ohio valley. He was born in Belmont county, October 18, 1829,
the son of Samuel Danford, a prosperous farmer of the county, who was a
conspicuous figure in his day, and served the people in various official
positions. At the farm home of the latter, Mr. Danford was reared and
received his rudimentary education in the neighboring school, then studied
at the Waynesburg, Penn., college, and at twenty-three years of age entered
the law office of Carlo C. Carroll, as a student of law. He was admitted to
the bar in 1854, beginning at that date a long and successful career as a
jurist. Almost at the same time he embarked in that career as a public man
which has made his name one of the familiar ones of the country's history.
During the closing days of the whig party he espoused its cause with great
vigor, and was one of the candidates for elector of the Fillmore ticket in
Ohio, in 1856. Soon afterward he became a zealous member of the new
republican party, and in 1857 he was elected prosecuting attorney for Belmont
county. To this office he was re-elected in 1859, but before the expiration
of the second term he found a more urgent duty before him as a patriotic
citizen, and resigned his office to shou1der a musket as a private in the
Seventeenth Ohio volunteer infantry. At the expiration of the three months'
service, he assisted in raising a company for the Fifteenth Ohio, of which
he was chosen second lieutenant. He was subsequently promoted first lieutenant
and then captain, as which he served until August 1, 1864, when he resigned
on account of impaired health. In political life meanwhile he had been active
as a republican and had been one of the electors of the state of Ohio, casting
the voice of that state for Abraham Lincoln. After the close of the war he
remained true to his Party, and in 1872 was nominated for congress, from the
sixteenth district, and was elected. He served In the forty-third congress,
and subsequently in 1874, was re-elected, and again chosen in 1876, but after
his third term in congress he declined further honors in that direction. He
had the distinction of succeeding to the seat filled by John A. Bingham, and
the trusts reposed in him were ably and honorably filled. As a congressman,
an orator upon questions of politics and statesmanship, and as a lawyer of
breadth and power, he is one of the distinguished men of eastern Ohio. Since
his retirement from congress Mr. Danford has devoted himself to the practice
of law, which is so extensive as to fully absorb his attention. In the
criminal practice, his fame is particularly widespread as one of the fore-
most in that branch of his profession. Mr. Danford was first married on
October 7, 1858, to Annie H. Cook, of Jefferson county, who died October
24, 1867. On October 27, 1870, he was married to Mary M. Adams, of St.
Clairsville.