Obed F. Strickland

Obed Francis Strickland was a justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory from 1869 to 1873.

Biography

Born in Dansville, New York, Strickland was a Freemason who moved to the Montana Territory with a promise of wealth from mining. He moved to the Utah Territory in May 1866, and reached the rank of Grand Master in 1872. He founded Wasatch Lodge No. 1 in Salt Lake City with Reuben H. Robertson, whom he had worked with in Montana previously.
Strickland practiced law as early as 1865 in Madison County, Montana, where he served as a probate judge and attorney. He became a judge who served on the Third District Court of the Utah Territory, and later served on the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory from 1869 until 1873. After Strickland's term as associate justice ended, it was claimed by a local newspaper that he paid for his position for $2,800 through a payment to Thomas J. Drake, who sued Strickland in court.
He left Utah in 1882, and died suddenly from heart disease in St. Johns, Michigan, at the age of 54. He is buried at DeWitt City Cemetery in DeWitt, Michigan.