Early Career
Born the son of Lewis Atterbury Stimson, a prominent surgeon, he was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where a dormitory is named and dedicated to him. He then attended Yale College where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He joined Skull and Bones, a secret society that afforded many contacts for the rest of his life. He earned his BA from Yale in 1888. He then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 1890, and joined the prestigious Wall Street law firm of Root and Clark in 1891. He became a partner in 1893. Elihu Root, a future Secretary of War and Secretary of State, became a major influence on and role model for Stimson.
In 1893, Stimson married Mabel Wellington White, a great-great granddaughter of American founding father Roger Sherman and the sister of Elizabeth Selden Rogers. An adult case of mumps had left Stimson infertile and they had no children.
In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Stimson U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Here, he made a distinguished record prosecuting antitrust cases. Stimson later served from 1937 to 1939 as president of the New York City Bar Association, where a medal honoring service as a U.S. Attorney is still awarded in his honor.
Stimson was defeated as Republican candidate for Governor of New York in 1910.
Read more about this topic: Henry L. Stimson
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