George Gifford Symes

George Gifford Symes (April 28, 1840 – November 3, 1893) was an American lawyer, Republican politician, Union Army officer, and pioneer of Wisconsin, Montana, and Colorado. He served as a member of Congress, representing Colorado’s at-large district during the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885 – March 3, 1889), and earlier as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Montana Territory. Over the course of his life he participated in the settlement and political development of several western states and territories and was active in public affairs from the Civil War era through the late nineteenth century.

Symes was born in Ashtabula County, Ohio, in April 1840, the eldest son of William Symes and his wife Mary (née Gifford), who had emigrated from England to the United States in 1836. He received his early education in Ohio before moving with his parents in 1852 to La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he completed his schooling. At the age of twenty he began the study of law in La Crosse in the offices of Angus Cameron, who later became a United States senator from Wisconsin. This early legal training under a prominent practitioner helped prepare him for a career that would combine law, military service, and politics.

At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Symes joined a volunteer company from La Crosse known as the “La Crosse Light Guard.” This company became Company B of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, which mustered into federal service on April 12, 1861. Serving with this regiment in the Union Army, he was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run and was discharged in December 1861 due to those injuries. After recovering, he reentered service and was commissioned adjutant of the 25th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. After a year as adjutant he was promoted to captain of Company F in that regiment. With the 25th Wisconsin Infantry he participated in major campaigns of the Western Theater, including the Siege of Vicksburg and the Atlanta campaign, and he was wounded again at Decatur, Georgia, in July 1864. While recuperating from this second wound, he was offered and accepted command of the newly organized 44th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. He returned to Wisconsin to assist in organizing the regiment; because the unit was called to service before it was fully organized, five companies were sent forward under their lieutenant colonel in November 1864. Symes completed the organization of the regiment and joined the advance battalion at Nashville, Tennessee, in February 1865. The 44th Wisconsin Infantry spent the remainder of the war on guard duty in Tennessee and Kentucky. During this period he sustained a wound near the spine that would cause him significant discomfort and depression for the rest of his life.

After the war, Symes remained in Paducah, Kentucky, where the 44th Wisconsin Infantry had been stationed, and established himself in the practice of law. In 1867 he entered electoral politics as the Radical Republican nominee for the United States House of Representatives in Kentucky’s 1st congressional district, challenging Democratic incumbent Lawrence S. Trimble. He was defeated in the election, and he and another Republican candidate contested the result, alleging intimidation of Union voters and arguing that Trimble should be disqualified for having aided the rebellion. Their challenge was unsuccessful, and Symes continued to practice law in Paducah until 1869. That year President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Montana Territory. He served on the territorial high court for about two years before resigning to resume private legal practice in Helena, Montana. His work on the bench and at the bar made him a prominent figure in the territory’s legal community.

In 1874 Symes decided to relocate to Denver, Colorado, to establish a permanent legal practice there. On his departure from Montana in February 1874, the legal community and other prominent residents of the territory honored him with a banquet celebrating his judicial and professional service. In Denver he quickly became a leading attorney and an active Republican, participating in the civic and political life of the growing city and of the state of Colorado. On July 3, 1875, he married Sophie Foster in Chicago. She was a daughter of the noted geologist John Wells Foster. Their marriage produced at least three children. Their eldest son, John Foster Symes, later had a distinguished legal career of his own, serving as United States attorney in Colorado and then for 28 years as a United States district judge in Colorado.

Symes was elected as a Republican to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses, representing Colorado’s at-large district from March 4, 1885, to March 3, 1889. As a member of the Republican Party representing Colorado, he contributed to the legislative process during two terms in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history marked by western development, industrial expansion, and debates over public lands and economic policy. While serving in Congress, he resided at 1501 18th Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C., in what is now the Dupont Circle Historic District; the house later became an annex of the Embassy of Malaysia. After leaving Congress, Symes returned to Denver, where he engaged in the management of his estate and resumed the practice of law, remaining a respected figure in the city’s professional and political circles.

In his later years Symes suffered increasingly from the effects of the spinal wound he had received during the Civil War, which caused chronic pain and contributed to episodes of depression. By 1893 his health had further deteriorated following four weeks of pneumonia. On November 3, 1893, in Denver, he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. He left a letter for his wife stating that he feared another night of agony. At the time of his death, his wife, who had her own health concerns, had been living for about a year in Massachusetts with their children. George Gifford Symes was interred in Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado, closing a life that had spanned the formative decades of the post–Civil War West and included service as a soldier, jurist, and congressman.