Tuesday, June 10, 2008

C. Orrick Bishop


Campbell Orrick Bishop, a prominate lawyer and judge in St. Louis, was a member and officer of the Union Base Ball Club as well as a member of the board of directors of the 1875 Brown Stockings.

Bishop was born in Union, Missouri on Decemer 28, 1842 to David H. and Sarah Lee (Lindsay) Bishop and graduated from St. Louis Central High School in 1858. After attending Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he went to law school in Louisville, Kentucky, graduating and being admitted to the bar in 1867.

A partner in the Bishop & Rollins law firm in St. Louis, Bishop also served as assistant circuit attorney from 1883-1897 and again from 1901-1905. A close associate of Missouri Gov. Joseph Folk, he was named to the circuit court bench in March of 1905 and served as a judge until 1907. The highlight of his public career was his involvement with Folk and others in the 1902-1904 "Boodle Scandal," helping to ferret out corruption amongst the political and business class in Missouri. Ironically, one of those caught up in the scandal was Bishop's fellow Union Club member Charles Hunt Turner.

Bishop, who according to W.E. Kelsoe "used to play (baseball) a little," served as the secretary of the Union Club in the early 1870's and Kelsoe states that he was the "last president of the Unions." In 1875, he was a member of the board of directors of the newly formed Brown Stockings (along with, again, Charles Turner).

Bishop was also involved in the governing of the National Association in 1875 and the organization of the National League in late 1875 and 1876. When William Hulbert was trying to organize the League, according to Harold Seymour, "he traveled to St. Louis...to confer with Charles Fowle...and Campbell Orrick Bishop, an attorney who had played with the St. Louis Unions in the 1860's and then became Vice President of the Association and a member of its Judiciary Committee. Bishop drew up a constitution for a new league based upon a draft submitted to him by Hulbert."

A life-long bachelor, Bishop died on August 26, 1929.

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