Carson City
Hon. W. A. Massey
Biography
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Nevada Genealogy Trails Carson City Hon. W. A. Massey Biography |
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HON. W. A. MASSEY has been connected with hoth the framing and the interpretation of the laws, having served as a member of the general assembly of the state, a member of the supreme court, and for a long period has been accounted one of the eminent practitioners at the bar of the state. He belongs to the prominent law firm of Cheney, Massey & Smith, of Reno, vhich has a very large and distinctively representative clientage, embracing connection with much of the most important litigation tried in the courts of the state.
Judge Massey was born in Perry county, Ohio, on the 7th of October, 1856. His grandfather, Mathew Massey, was a native of the north of Ireland, and when a young man came to the United States, locating in New York, where he was married, thus becoming the progenitor of the family in this country. He removed to Morgan county. Ohio, where his son, William Massey, the father of Judge Massey, was born on the 5th of May, 1826. During the greater part of the Civil war William Massey was a member of the Union army, serving first in West Virginia, after which he was transferred to the Western Army. He was present at the investment of Vicksburg and served under General Sherman in the thirty days' fighting on the way to Atlanta. He also participated in the capture of that city as well as of Vicksburg. By profession he was a physician, but went to the front as a lieutenant, although he was later made surgeon of the Sixty-eighth Ohio Battery. Following the cessation of hostilities he established his home in Paris, Illinois, where he continued in the practice of medicine up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1882. He had wedded Miss Mary Thorp, who was born in Perry county, Ohio, and their union was blessed with five children, of whom two are yet living, the brother of Judge Massey being J. A. Massey, of Illinois.
Judge William A. Massey was but a small boy when his parents removed from Ohio to Illinois, where he was reared. His early education, acquired in the public schools, was supplemented by study in Asbury University, at Greencastle, Indiana, and then preparing for the practice of law he was admitted to the bar in Sullivan, Indiana. In 1885 he removed to San Diego, California, and after spending a year there came to Nevada. He engaged in mining in Elko county for four years, but was very unfortunate in his mining ventures, losing all his money. He then resumed the practice of law, and his ability in the line of his profession soon won recognition and a liberal clientele. While residing there, he was, in 1892, elected a member of the state legislature, and proved a most active worker in the house in the interests of those measures which he believed would prove of greatest benefit to the state. In 1896 he was elected a member of the supreme court of Nevada and removed to Carson, but in 1898 he resigned from the bench to form his present law partnership and is now actively engaged in a very successful practice, embracing connection with all departments of jurisprudence. He is thoroughly well informed concerning legal principles, and he took to the bench the highest qualification for that most important office in the gift of the people. Patience, urbanity and courtesy made him a successful jurist inasmuch as these qualities supplemented broad legal learning and an analytical mind, winch is readily receptive and retentive of the points brought forth in every case. In argument he is strong, forceful and convincing, and his deductions follow in logical sequence.
In 1879 Judge Massey was united in marriage to Miss Florence Massey, who was descended from the same ancestry as the Judge, but is not a near relative. This union has been blessed with two sons: R. R. Massey, now in college; and W. H. Massey. also a student. The wife and mother died in 1890, and a few years afterward Judge Massey wedded Miss Annie Sheehan, a native of New York. They occupy delightful apartments at the Riverside Hotel, and they enjoy the hospitality of the best homes of Reno. The Judge belongs to the Masonic fraternity, having been made a Mason in Elko Lodge No. 15, F. & A. M. Faultless in honor, fearless in conduct and stainless in reputation, he stands as a high type of our American manhood.
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