Attorney General: George H. Williams
George Henry Williams was born in New Lebanon, New York, on March 26, 1823. He attended local public schools and Pompey Academy in Onondaga County, read law under Daniel Gott, and was admitted to the bar in 1844. Williams relocated to Fort Madison, Iowa Territory, where he began practicing law. In 1847, he was elected judge of the First Judicial District of the new state of Iowa. Williams was appointed chief justice of the Territorial Courts of Oregon in 1853 but declined reappointment in 1857. He was a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention. From 1865 to 1871, Williams served as U.S. Senator from Oregon. In 1871, he was a member of the Joint High Commission to resolve various disagreements between the United States and Great Britain.
On December 14, 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Williams as Attorney General of the United States. He was nominated as Chief Justice of the United States in 1873 but ultimately withdrew his name from consideration. He resigned the post of Attorney General in 1875. He practiced law in Washington, D.C., for a brief time before returning to his law practice in Portland, Oregon. Williams served two terms as mayor of Portland, from 1902 to 1905. He died in that city on April 4, 1910.
Freeman Thorp was born in Ohio in 1844 and served in the 2nd Ohio Cavalry during the American Civil War. In 1870, at the age of 26, he became an honorary member of the Berlin Society of Artists. The next year, Thorp began using a small loft in the U.S. Capitol dome as a portrait studio. He painted many presidents, cabinet officials, congressmen, governors, and military leaders. One of his portraits of President Abraham Lincoln, made from earlier sketches, was purchased in 1920 for exhibition in the U.S. Capitol. Thorp's portrait of Attorney General Williams was painted in 1875. Thorp died in 1922.