The Life and Times of Benjamin Helm Bristow

Mr Bristow’s family was among the fonders of KY and helped form the Republican Party in KY. He served as a Union officer in the Cival War, was elected to the KY house, appointed KY US District-ATTY and prosecuted Federal crimes during reconstruction. He was appointed the first Solicitor-G of the US and served as Treasury Secretary under President Grant during which time he was responsible for the refinancing of the Civil War debt and successfully prosecuted the “Whiskey Ring”.


In eighteen seventy six he was nominated by the Republican Party for president, thereafter he relocated to NYC and organized the American Bar Association. Cases he litigated established legal principles that ignorance of the law no excuse”, the life of a patent and preferential debts under a receivership. Upon his death, Mr. Bristow was counsel to three Presidents and a respected defender of US Corporate law. Tributes to him graced the pages of newspapers throughout the US and Europe acknowledging him a as a leader of his generation not to be easily replaced.