James M. Birney

James Birney (June 17, 1817 – May 8, 1888) was an American lawyer, newspaper publisher and politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served as the 13th lieutenant governor of Michigan and as the U.S. Minister to the Netherlands. Early life James Birney was born in Danville, Kentucky, the eldest son of Agatha (McDowell) and James Gillespie Birney, who was a presidential candidate for the Liberty Party in the 1840 and 1844 elections. Birney spent his early years in Alabama and Kentucky. Birney was educated at Centre College in Danville and in 1836 graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. For the next two years, Birney was employed by the university as a professor of the Greek and Latin languages. After this, he studied law at Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut. Completing his studies, Birney moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and began the practice of law until 1856, when he succeeded to his father's business interests in the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, where his father had made large investments in what has become Bay City. Birney moved there in the summer of 1857. One of Birney's most notable early acts of public service was procuring the passage in 1857 of an act in the state legislature changing the name of "Lower Saginaw" to Bay City. In 1856, Birney had the distinction of editing the city's first newspaper, the Bay City Press, which lasted for only a few weeks. Political career In 1858, Birney was nominated as a Republican candidate for the Michigan Senate. At the time the senate district was regarded as a stronghold of the Democratic Party, thus it was seen as a significant achievement that Birney garnered all of the votes in the district within Bay County except for five. He served a single term in the Senate representing the Saginaw district. While in the Senate, Birney was chairman of the committee on public instruction and a member of the judiciary committee.