BAY COUNTY
Memorial Report
W. R. Mc Cormick
James Birney

     Hon. James Birney died at Bay City, Tuesday, May 8, 1888, and in his death the 10th district loses one of its most cultivated, courteous and talented men.  He came of an historical family.  His father, James G. Birney, gained a world-wide fame by freeing all the slaves inherited from his father, and was a presidential candidate twice, in 1840-44, as an anti-slavery man.  Mr. Birney had held many important offices, state and national, having been representative in the legislature from this district, lieutenant governor of the State, circuit judge, and minister pleniportentiary to the Hague, from 1876 to 1882.  The latter office he resigned to return home and stand for congress in this district, having been promised the nomination, which was then considered as good as an election.  But the decent men of the republican party could not prevail, and the nomination went to Hatch.  Again in 1884 he was beaten for the nomination by the pothouse politicians of Bay City, and a fellow named Gibson put up, who was beaten out of his boot by Congressman Fisher.  Had the party been faithful to Birney, it is altogether probable that they would still control the district.   Judge Birney was not a popular man with the ragtag and bobtail elements of the g.o.p., as he did not get drunk, nor play cards in saloons, pack caucuses, or cultivate the bum elements; they thought him an aristocrat, but he was only a true, loyal, tender hearted gentleman, who could not play the demagogue.

In Memoriam

     Judge James Birney died at his residence in Bay City, May 8, 1888, aged 71 years.
     Judge Birney was early identified with the Saginaw valley, being one of the pioneers, his father, the Hon. James G. Birney, the great philanthropist, having settled here some years before he came.  Judge Birney came to Lower Saginaw, now Bay City, in 1856, having purchased his father's interest. 
     He was the means of getting a bill passed changing the name of Lowers Saginaw to Bay City.   He was elected a State senator in 1858, receiving all the votes cast but five, although it was a democratic district.   In 1860 Judge Birney was nominated for lieutenant governor and elected by 20,000 majority.
     Some time after he was appointed circuit judge of what is now the 18th judicial circuit.  From 1871 to 1873 he was owner and editor of the Bay City Chronicle.   In 1872 he was appointed by the president as Centennial Commissioner for Michigan to celebrate the hundredth anniversity of the Declaration of Independence, in 1876.   In 1875 he was appointed United States minister to the Netherlands, where he served four years, when he resigned and returned home to attend to his real estate, in which he was largely interested in this city and county.   Judge Birney held many offices in the gift of the people which we have not space to mention.   He was president of the board of education of Bay City at the time of his death.   Judge Birney had five children of whom only one, a daughter, survives him, his wife having also died some few years since.
     As a man Judge Birney was a perfect gentleman, honest and straight forward in all his dealing with his fellow men and was universally respected by all who knew him.  In his death the city and community sustain a great loss.