Attorney General: Jeremiah S. Black
Jeremiah Sullivan Black was born in Stony Creek, Pennsylvania, on January 10, 1810. He received a common school education, read law with Chauncey Forward, and was admitted to the bar at the age of 20. He practiced law in Somerset for several years. In 1842, Black was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the Sixteenth District, a position he held until 1851 when elected justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He was reelected to that court in 1854, serving for a time as its chief justice.
President James Buchanan appointed Black as the Attorney General of the United States on March 6, 1857. He resigned that office on December 17, 1860, to accept an appointment as Secretary of State. In 1861, President Buchanan appointed Black for a judicial vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate declined to consider the nomination. Black returned briefly to private life before accepting the position of Reporter to the U.S. Supreme Court, in which capacity he served until 1864. In 1872 and 1873, he participated in Pennsylvania’s Constitutional Convention. He was appointed in 1874 to the commission to settle a longstanding boundary dispute between Virginia and Maryland. Black died in York, Pennsylvania, on August 19, 1883.
William E. Winner was born in Philadelphia in 1815 and worked there primarily until his death in 1883. He was a portrait and genre painter and active in the Board of Control of the Artists' Fund Society. Winner's work was recognized during his lifetime and was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Boston Athenaeum, and the American Academy. Winner's portrait of Attorney General Black was painted in 1872. Winner died in 1883.