Chester Harding

As printed in 1899

Harding, Chester, lawyer, was born in 1826, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and died in St. Louis, in 1875. He was a descendant and namesake of Chester Harding, the artist, and came of an old New England family. After graduating at a New England college he began his law studies in St. Louis, under the preceptorship of Judge John M. Krum, of the circuit court, who was his brother-in-law. After studying for some time in Judge Krum’s office he went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there entered the Harvard Law School, from which institution he was graduated at the end of a full course, in the class of 1850. In 1852 he returned to St. Louis, and, forming a partnership with Judge Krum, soon acquired an enviable reputation as a practitioner of law. The firm of Krum & Harding continued in existence until 1861, when the breaking out of the Civil War temporarily diverted Mr. Harding from professional pursuits. His inherited tendencies, education and training made him an ardent Unionist, and, volunteering his services in defense of his country, he was commissioned a colonel of volunteer troops, When General Lyon took command of a brigade, Colonel Harding was assigned to duty on his staff, and for some months prior to the arrival of General Fremont, in 1861, he was in command of the United States military forces at St. Louis. After that he was in active service in the field until the close of the war and gained distinction for his gallantry and ability as a commanding officer. At the close of the war, he returned to St. Louis and resumed his practice of the law, and held a prominent position at the bar until his death.

He was a chivalrous gentleman as well as an able lawyer, and the esteem in which he was held by the bar was demonstrated by its adoption of a series of highly eulogistic resolutions and the attendance of the bar at his funeral in a body. He had endeared himself during the years of his residence in St. Louis after the war, especially to the veterans of the Union Army, and at his death the survivors of that conflict were among the sincerest mourners who followed his remains to their last resting place. One of these comrades in arms and also a brother lawyer, distinguished as lawyer, soldier and statesman, Colonel James O. Broadhead, presided at the meeting of the bar at which appropriate action was taken on the death of Colonel Harding. On that occasion several addresses were made by prominent members of the bar, all of whom united in paying the highest tributes to Colonel Harding’s ability as a lawyer, to his patriotism as a soldier and to his admirable qualities as a man and a citizen. A son of New England, he revered the history and traditions of the region in which he was born and brought up, but was none the less loya! to Western interests and to the city in which he spent nearly all the years of his manhood in the practice of an honorable profession and the building up of a good name.

As printed in Encyclopedia of the history of St. Louis, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference (v. 2) (1899). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.