Isaac P. Christiancy

Who was Isaac P. Christiancy?

Isaac Peckham Christiancy was Chief Justice of the Michigan State Supreme Court and U.S. Senator from the state of Michigan.

Christiancy was born near Johnstown, New York in what is now Bleecker, New York to parents of humble means. His grandfather, Isaac Peckham, was one of the first pioneers in Caroga, New York, settling in the area as early as 1783. Christiancy attended the common schools and the Johnstown and Ovid Academies. After his father died when he was 13, he also had to support his family. He taught school and studied law. In 1836, Christiancy was admitted to the bar after moving to Monroe, Michigan, where he obtained a clerkship in a Federal land office. He married Elizabeth E. McClosky on November 16, 1839.

He was prosecuting attorney for Monroe County, Michigan from 1841 to 1846. In 1848 he was a delegate to the Free Soil Party convention in Buffalo, New York, having left the Democratic Party over the question of slavery.

He was a member of the Michigan State Senate from 1850 to 1852 and an unsuccessful Free Soil Party candidate for Governor in 1852. He helped to organize the Republican Party in Jackson, Michigan in 1854. He purchased the Monroe Commercial in 1857 and became its editor. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in that year.