Henry R. Start (December 28, 1845 – November 7, 1905) was a Vermont lawyer, judge, and politician who served as Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives and an associate justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.
Biography Start was born in Bakersfield, Vermont, on December 28, 1845, the son of Simeon Gould and Mary Sophia (Barnes) Start. He attended Bakersfield and Barre Academies.Jacob G. Ullery, Men of Vermont Illustrated, 1894, pages 374-375 His older brother Charles M. Start served as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
He joined the Union Army in 1865, near the end of the Civil War, and served in Company A, 3rd Vermont Volunteer Infantry.Vermont Secretary of State, Legislative Directory, 1904, pages 50-51
Discharged in July 1865, he returned to Franklin County and read law under M. R. Tyler. He was admitted to the bar in St. Albans in 1867. Start commenced practice in Bakersfield and formed a partnership, Cross & Start, with A. P. Cross of St. Albans.Hiram Carleton, Genealogical and Family History of the State of Vermont, Volume 1, pages 343-344
A Republican, he served as State's Attorney for Franklin County from 1876 to 1878.Vermont General Assembly, Journal of the Vermont House of Representatives, 1877, page 586
Start served in the Vermont Senate in 1880 and served on the Judiciary committee and as chairman of the joint standing committee on the reform school.Vermont General Assembly, Journal of the Vermont State Senate, 1880, pages 234, 299, 305
He was a Trustee of the Vermont Reform School from December 1880 to December 1888.Vermont Secretary of State, Legislative Directory, 1898, page 347
Start served as a presidential elector in the election of 1888, and cast his ballot for Benjamin Harrison.Conrad Reno, Leonard Augustus Jones, Memoirs of the Judiciary and the Bar of New England, Volume 1, 1901, page 53
In 1890 Start served in the Vermont House of Representatives. He was elected Speaker, but resigned after being elected an associate justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.Vermont General Assembly, Journal of the Vermont House of Representatives, 1890, page 9Vermont General Assembly, Journal of the Vermont State Senate, 1890, pages 433-434
Start served on the court until his death. He died at his home in Bakersfield on November 7, 1905 and was buried in Bakersfield's Maple Grove Cemetery. He was succeeded on the Vermont Supreme Court by Willard W. Miles.Frederick W. Baldwin, History of "Bank of Orleans," "Irasburgh National Bank of Orleans," "Barton National Bank," "Barton Savings Bank," and "Barton Savings Bank and Trust Company", 1916, pages 115-116
Family He was a Congregationalist.Vermont Secretary of State, Legislative Directory, 1902, pages 417-418 He married Ellen S. Houghton on June 10, 1869.Vermont Vital Records, 1720-1908, marriage record for Ellen Sarah Houghton, retrieved January 3, 2014 Their children included Simeon Gould (b. 1870), Guy H. (b. 1873), Mabel (b. 1878), and Burdette (b. 1885).William Augustus Start, A Genealogical Record of the Start Family in America, 1894, page 22
References
External links Henry R. Start at Political Graveyard at