Joseph S. Dailey (May 31, 1844 – October 9, 1905) was an

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, and

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who served as a justice of the

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from June 25, 1893 to January 7, 1895.Minde C. Browning, Richard Humphrey, and Bruce Kleinschmidt,
Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices
, ''

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'', Vol. 30, No. 1 (1997), section reproduced i
Indiana Courts Justice Biographies page

Biography

Joseph Dailey was born in Lancaster Township, Wells County,

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to James Dailey (Lancaster Township's first justice of the peace) and Lydia Dailey (née Garton). His family is of Irish descent. Both of Dailey's grandfathers were

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natives and also both served in the

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. He was the fifth of James and Lydia's nine children. Joseph Dailey's brother, Lewis "Lew" Dailey, enlisted in the Union army following the outbreak of the

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and died while fighting in the conflict. The local post of the

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in Bluffton was named the Lew Dailey Post in his honor. Joseph Dailey was educated in the public schools of Bluffton before studying law for two years at the local law office of Newton Burwell. Dailey also taught school in Bluffton and elsewhere in Wells County. In 1866, Dailey graduated from the

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in Bloomington. That same year, he was admitted to the Indiana bar and returned to Bluffton to open a private practice in partnership with George S. Brown. In 1866, Dailey—a

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—was elected

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of the common pleas court. In 1868, he was elected

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of the 10th Indiana Judicial

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(comprising Wells,

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, and Whitley counties). He was re-elected to this position in 1870, 1872, and 1874. In 1878, Dailey was elected to serve in the

Indiana House of Representatives The Indiana House of Representatives is the lower house of the Indiana General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Indiana. The House is composed of 100 members representing an equal number of constituent districts. House mem ...

. In 1882, he was the Democratic nominee for a seat in the

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, but was defeated. He returned to his private practice until 1888, when he was elected judge of the 28th Circuit Court (comprising Wells and Huntington counties). In 1893, Dailey was appointed by

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to the

following the resignation of Justice Walter Olds. Dailey authored more than eighty

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while serving on the bench. Dailey left the court in 1895 and was succeeded by Justice Leander J. Monks. After leaving the court, Dailey returned to Bluffton to practice law with his son, Frank C. Dailey. Dailey married Emma Gutelius in Bluffton in 1870. They had four children, including the aforementioned Frank C. Dailey (a lawyer like his father), Lewis W. Dailey (a

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), and Charles G. Dailey (principal of Bluffton High School). Dailey died in Bluffton in 1905.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dailey, Joseph S. 1844 births 1905 deaths People from Wells County, Indiana Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court American judges Democratic Party members of the Indiana House of Representatives American people of Irish descent