Representative Burr W. Jones

Burr W. Jones (March 9, 1846 – January 7, 1935) was an American lawyer, politician, jurist, and law professor who served one term in the United States House of Representatives in the 48th Congress and later as a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. As a member of the Democratic Party representing Wisconsin, he contributed to the legislative process during a single term in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents during a significant period in American history.

Jones was born in the Town of Union, in Rock County, Wisconsin Territory, on March 9, 1846. His parents had migrated to the Wisconsin Territory from western Pennsylvania and western New York, respectively. His father, William Jones, died in 1855, and his mother subsequently married Levi Leonard, a pioneer of Rock County. Raised on a farm, Jones experienced the rural frontier life of the territory, which had only recently been opened to settlement. These early years in Rock County shaped his familiarity with the concerns of farmers and small communities that would later inform his public service.

Jones attended the Evansville Seminary in Evansville, Wisconsin, where he was both a student and, for three years, a teacher. He taught at the seminary in order to finance his university education. He entered the University of Wisconsin and graduated from its literary department in 1870. He then enrolled in the law department of the University of Wisconsin and received his law degree in 1871. After leaving the university, he studied law in the Madison office of William Freeman Vilas, a prominent Wisconsin lawyer and future United States senator and cabinet officer. Jones was admitted to the State Bar of Wisconsin in 1871. Late that year he began practicing law in Portage, Wisconsin, but within a year he moved to Madison, where he entered into a series of law partnerships with Alden Sprague Sanborn, A. C. Parkinson, F. J. Lamb, and E. Ray Stevens.

Jones’s public career began at the local level. In November 1872 he was elected district attorney for Dane County, Wisconsin, and he was re-elected to that office in 1874. His work as district attorney established his reputation as a capable lawyer and public official in Madison and the surrounding region. During these years he continued in private practice while building connections within the Wisconsin Democratic Party. His growing prominence in legal and political circles in Dane County and southern Wisconsin laid the groundwork for his later election to national office.

In 1882 Jones was elected as a Democrat to represent Wisconsin’s 3rd congressional district in the 48th Congress, serving from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1885. As a member of the United States House of Representatives, he served on the House Committee on War Claims and acted as chairman of that committee when the regular chairman was incapacitated by a long illness. His term in Congress coincided with debates over Civil War pensions, federal expenditures, and postwar claims, issues that came before the War Claims Committee. Jones sought re-election in 1884 but was defeated, bringing his congressional service to a close after one term. Nonetheless, his time in the House marked him as one of the leading Democratic figures from Wisconsin in the late nineteenth century.

After leaving Congress, Jones returned to Madison and resumed his legal career while embarking on a long association with the University of Wisconsin. He became a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, a position he held for approximately thirty years. In this role he trained generations of Wisconsin lawyers and helped shape the development of legal education in the state. In 1891 he served as city attorney of Madison, further extending his record of local public service. In 1897 and 1898 he was chairman of the first Wisconsin Tax Commission, an important body in the early efforts to systematize and reform the state’s tax structure. In 1894 he gained national attention in academic and legal circles when he served as attorney for University of Wisconsin economics professor Richard T. Ely during an effort to remove Ely for discussing socialism and allegedly holding unpopular views. The successful defense of Ely led to the famous “sifting and winnowing” statement by the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, affirming academic freedom, and Jones’s role in the case linked his name to one of the landmark episodes in the history of American higher education.

Jones remained active in Democratic Party politics throughout his career. He was chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic state convention in 1892, helping to guide party affairs during a period of intense national debate over economic and monetary policy. In 1896 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Indianapolis, associated with the “Gold Democratic” movement, where he was chosen to place in nomination Edward S. Bragg of Wisconsin for president. Although Bragg did not secure the nomination, Jones’s selection as his nominator underscored his standing within the party. Beyond partisan politics, Jones was a leader in the legal profession. He served as chairman of the Dane County Bar Association and, in 1908, was elected president of the State Bar Association of Wisconsin. In recognition of his long service as a teacher and scholar, the University of Wisconsin conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) in 1916. He was also the author of a widely used legal treatise, “The Law of Evidence in Civil Cases,” first published in the late nineteenth century and later expanded into multiple volumes, which became a standard reference for practitioners and students.

In 1920 Jones’s judicial career reached its peak when Governor Emanuel L. Philipp appointed him to the Wisconsin Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice John B. Winslow. In April 1922 he was elected to fill the remainder of Winslow’s term, which was set to expire in 1926. Jones chose not to seek re-election in 1925, and in January 1926 he was succeeded on the court by his former law partner, E. Ray Stevens. After leaving the bench, Jones returned to the practice of law in Madison, remaining an influential figure in Wisconsin’s legal community well into his later years.

Jones’s personal life was closely tied to Madison and southern Wisconsin. In December 1873 he married Olive L. Hoyt; the couple had one daughter. After the death of his first wife in 1906, he married Katharine McDonald, who survived him. He continued to live and work in Madison until his final illness. Burr W. Jones died in a hospital in Madison on January 7, 1935, and was interred at Forest Hill Cemetery in that city. His legacy in Wisconsin is reflected in several commemorations: one of the Kronshage dormitories at the University of Wisconsin–Madison bears his name, as does a city park on the Yahara River in Madison and Burr Jones Road in the historic Leonard Leota Park in Evansville, Wisconsin. His role in the Richard T. Ely academic freedom controversy was later dramatized in a 1964 episode of the television series “Profiles in Courage,” titled “Richard T. Ely,” in which Jones was portrayed by actor Leonard Nimoy.