Henry M. Hoyt (Solicitor General)


Henry Martyn Hoyt Jr. served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1903 to 1909. His father, also named Henry Martyn Hoyt, served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1883.

Early life

Hoyt was born on December 5, 1856, in Wilkes-Barre, the son of Mary Elizabeth Hoyt and Henry Martyn Hoyt, the governor of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1883. He graduated from Yale University in 1878 and the law school of the University of Pennsylvania in 1881. At Yale, he was a classmate of William Howard Taft, who would later become president.

Career

After a career spent in private practice as a lawyer in Pennsylvania, starting in Pittsburgh and then in banking he became an Assistant Attorney General in 1897. In 1903, he was appointed Solicitor General by Theodore Roosevelt. After the end of Roosevelt's term in office he became a counselor to Secretary of State Philander C. Knox.

Personal life

In 1883, Hoyt married Anne Morton McMichael, a daughter of Col. Morton McMichael Jr., "one of the foremost citizens of Philadelphia" and a granddaughter of Mayor Morton McMichael. Together, they had five children, including:

Death

Hoyt died on November 20, 1910, in Washington, D.C.