Edward Swift Isham

Edward Swift Isham (January 15, 1836 – February 16, 1902) was an American lawyer and politician from Vermont. The son of a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, Isham attended Williams College and the Harvard School of Law before he was admitted to the bar in 1858. He headed west, establishing a practice in Chicago, Illinois, in 1859. The practice eventually became Isham Lincoln & Beale. Isham also served one term in the Illinois House of Representatives.

Early life Edward Swift Isham was born in Bennington, Vermont on January 15, 1836. He was the eldest son of Semantha (née Swift) Isham (1808–1896) and Pierpoint Isham (1802–1872), later a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. Among his siblings was Mary Adeline Isham, the wife of Sartell Prentice (their son Ezra married Alta Rockefeller), and Henry Pierpont Isham, a Chicago real estate broker and banker.

His paternal grandparents were Dr. Ezra Isham and Nancy (née Pierpont) Isham, (Edward Swift Isham's paternal grandfather, Dr.) Ezra Isham (1773–1835), was the brother of Samuel Isham (1752–1827), both sons of John Isham II (1721–1802), who was born at Barnstable, Massachusetts and moved to Colchester, Connecticut. Samuel Isham was the grandfather of leather merchant William Bradley Isham (1827–1909), who was the father of historian Charles Bradford Isham (1853–1919) (husband of Mamie Lincoln, Robert Todd Lincoln's daughter) and Samuel Isham, a prominent artist). His maternal grandmother Nancy was the great-granddaughter of Rev. James Pierpont, the founder of Yale University.

Career Isham studied law in his father's office and then attended the Harvard School of Law. He was admitted to the bar in Rutland, Vermont, in 1858. The firm retained this name until it dissolved in 1988. Isham's most notable cases include the arrangement of the Newberry Library endowment and the 1876 Chicago mayoral election controversy. He received an LL.D. from Williams College in 1893. They had two sons and two daughters, including:

Ann Elizabeth Isham (1862–1912), who died during the sinking of the RMS Titanic, one of only four upper-class women to do so. Pierrepont Isham (1865–1906), who graduated from West Point in 1887 and served in the 7th Cavalry Regiment and later became a partner in the law firm. Edward Swift Isham Jr. (1868–1927), who graduated from Yale and married Laura Miller, and was the father of three. Frances Isham (1872–1970), who married Henry Tweedy Shelton (1862–1950), a Yale Law School graduate.

Isham was a charter member of the Chicago Club and drafted its incorporation papers in 1869.

He died suddenly of heart disease on February 16, 1902, while at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, New York. After a funeral at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York, he was buried at Dellwood Cemetery in Manchester, Vermont.