Charles F. Tabor

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Charles F. Tabor (b. June 28, 1841 St. Joseph County, Michigan) was an American lawyer and politician.

[edit] Life

He was the son of Silas Tabor and Betsey E. Russell Tabor. In 1843, the family removed to Newstead, New York. He was educated at Clarence and Williamsville Academies and Lima Seminary. In 1861, he went to Buffalo, New York to study law in the office of Humphrey & Parsons, and was admitted to the bar in 1863. On December 24, 1863, he married Phebe S. Andrews, and their daughter was Georgia E. Tabor.

In 1868 he formed a partnership with Judge Thomas Corlett, and six years later, when Judge Corlett retired, formed a partnership with William F. Sheehan. In 1888, John Cunneen and Edward E. Coatsworth were admitted to the firm under the name of Tabor, Sheehan, Cunneen & Coatsworth. In 1895, Tabor became the senior member of the law firm of Tabor & Wilkie.

In 1881 and 1882 he was a supervisor of the Town of Lancaster, New York where he resided from 1867 to 1883 when he removed to Buffalo. He was an excise commissioner of Erie County for three years.

As a Democrat, he was New York State Attorney General from 1888 to 1891. He vacated the charter of the Sugar Trust of New York on the ground that it was a monopoly. As attorney-general he also had charge of the litigation which involved the constitutionality of the electrocution law and succeded in obtaining a decision from the U. S. Supreme Court to the effect that the law was constitutional and valid. He also obtained from that court an affirmation of a decision of the New York Court of Appeals in the case of the Home Insurance Company, that corporations were liable to taxation on their capital stock although that stock consisted of government bonds, otherwise exempt.

In 1899 he ran for justice of the New York Supreme Court, but was defeated.

[edit] Sources

• [1] Our County and It's People - a descriptive work on Erie County, New York edited by Truman C. White (The Boston History Company, 1898)
• [2] List of New York Attorneys General, at Office of the NYSAG
• [3] Political Graveyard (giving wrong middle initial)
• [4] New Political Graveyard (with correct middle initial)
• [5] Election result, in NYT on DEcember 29, 1899