Joseph McKenna.
Another of the numerous successful jurists whose ancestry is Irish. He was the son of John and Mary McKenna, his father being from Ireland and his mother from England. He was born at Philadelphia, August 10, 1843, and was educated in the public schools and at St. Joseph college until 1855, when the family removed to Benicia, California, where he entered St. Augustine college and took up the study of law. Directly afterward he graduated and was admitted to the bar. In 1865 he was elected district attorney of Solano county. He served in this capacity for two terms. In 1873 he was elected to the legislature, and one year later the republicans nominated him for congress, but he was defeated, and not only on this occasion but again in 1878. In 1884, however, he was elected, and a year later entered congress, where he remained, by re-election, until 1891. As a member of the ways and means committee he had a great deal to do with important tariff legislation. In 1892 President Harrison appointed him circuit judge. In 1897 he entered McKinley’s cabinet as attorney-general, but in December of the same year was appointed judge of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Justice Field. He was married in San Francisco, 1869, to Amanda Borneman.