George B. Young, Associate Justice, 1874-1875

Appointed Associate Justice at age 34

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 25, 1840, George B. Young graduated from Harvard Law School in 1863, and was admitted to practice in New York City in 1864. Young practiced in New York for several years before relocating to Minnesota in 1870. He married his wife Ellen Fellows from Martha's Vineyard on September 28, 1870. Young was admitted to practice in Minnesota that same year and practiced law until 1874, when Governor Cushman Davis appointed him Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by the the promotion of Associate Justice Samuel McMillan who was promoted to Chief Justice after the retirement of Chief Justice Ripley. His time as a Justice was brief, leaving when his term expired, but from 1875 until 1892, Young served as Supreme Court Reporter, editing volumes 21-47 of the Minnesota Reports. Thereafter he resumed the private practice of law until his death in St. Paul on December 30, 1906. Much of his work involved the railroads and he knew James J. Hill. His nephew Edward also became a lawyer and lived with him in his residence at 324 Summit Ave. in St. Paul.

You may read more about Justice Young in the memorial and articles, linked below, and in the book Testimony: Remembering Minnesota’s Supreme Court Justices, which is a source of this brief biography.