Attorney General: Joseph McKenna
Joseph McKenna was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 10, 1843. He attended St. Joseph’s College and graduated from the Collegiate Institute at Benicia, California, in 1865, before being admitted to the California bar that same year. Beginning in March 1866, McKenna was twice elected district attorney for Solano County. He served in the lower house of California’s legislature in both the 1875 and 1876 sessions. McKenna was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for four terms, resigning in 1892 to accept an appointment by President Benjamin Harrison to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
McKenna was appointed Attorney General of the United States by President William McKinley on March 5, 1897, and served in that capacity until January 25, 1898. He became Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court on January 26, 1898. McKenna served nearly 27 years on the Court, among the longest tenures of any justice in its history, retiring from the bench in January 1925. He died on November 21, 1926, in Washington, D.C.
Harold L. MacDonald was born in 1861 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He studied in Paris with Gustave Boulanger and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. For many years he was a resident of Washington, D.C., where he was a sought-after portrait painted. He died in 1923.