History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

opportunities and a larger field for the exercise of the superior talents
with which he was endowed. He early attained a position of prominence in his profession, and in much of the important litigation during
the following half century he was retained either by the prosecution or
the defense. As a criminal lawyer he was without peer and was identified with many of the leading criminal trials in Oakland and adjoining
counties.
Judge Baldwin was always an enthusiastic Democrat and one of the
hardest workers for that party's success in Michigan. His first public
office was that of school inspector of Bloomfield township in I840, and
three years later he was elected to the state legislature. He was reelected to the legislature in I845 and took a prominent part in the sessions of 1844 and I846. He served as a brigadier general of the fifth
brigade of Michigan militia from I846 to 1862, in which year the existing militia system was abolished. He was prosecuting attorney of
Oakland county during 1853 and I854. In I862 he was elected a member of the thirty-eighth congress from what was then the fifth congressional district of Michigan, defeating the Republican candidate, R.
E. Trowbridge, and served on the committees on agriculture and expenditures in the interior department. In the issue concerning the
thirteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, he voted
in support of the amendment, that is, for its submission to the states for
their approval. He was renominated for congress in 1864 and was
again opposed by Mr. Trowbridge. The state had in the meantime enacted a statute authorizing Michigan soldiers in the army to vote in the
field. Judge Baldwin received a clear majority of the home votes, and
notwithstanding the fact that the supreme court of Michigan declared
the statute above mentioned to be void, the house of representatives,
upon contest being made, gave the seat to Mr. Trowbridge.
Mr. Baldwin was elected mayor of Pontiac in 1874 and for eighteen
consecutive years was a member of the school board of the city, during
which time many important changes were made in the school system and
the high school erected largely through his influence. He was also active
in having Pontiac chosen as the location of the eastern Michigan asylum,
and for eighteen years he was a member of the board of trustees of that
institution. In 1875 he was elected judge of the sixth judicial district
of Michigan for a term of six years, and served four years of that time
with characteristic impartiality and a high sense of justice, retaining the
respect and gaining the commendation of the entire bar. The salary at
the time was so utterly inadequate, and the state refusing to make the
necessary consitutional amendment, he resigned the office with two years
of the term unexpired, to resume a remunerative practice. Every phase
of jurisprudence and legal procedure came up in his extensive practice,
and not infrequently he had his share in the establishment of precedents
in the laws of Michigan. There are few reports of the supreme court of
Michigan between I850 and I900 which do not record important cases
with which he was identified.
The Michigan Military Academy at Orchard Lake also owes much
to him for its remarkable success, as he was one of its trustees and for
years its president. He was for several years president of the Oakland