Samuel Duncan Oliphant

Title: Bankruptcy
Died: October 23, 1904

Judge Samuel D. Oliphant was born in 1824 at Franklin Forge, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Jefferson College in 1844 and from Harvard Law School in 1847. He studied law with E. P. Oliphant, his uncle, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1847. From 1849 to 1852 he practiced law in Pittsburgh, being in partnership with Honorable Thomas Williams, and from 1852 until 1861 he practiced in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

He entered the army as a captain at the opening of the Civil War, and took part in the defense of Washington, and the battles of Alexandria, Manassas Junction, Beaver Dam, Gaines' Mill and White Oak Swamp, being wounded in the last-named.

In June, 1863, General Oliphant was commissioned to the United States Veteran Reserve Corps as Major and was promoted in August to be Lieutenant Colonel, and in October to be Colonel. He commanded a division of the troops who took part in the Pennsylvania coal field riots in 1864. In July, 1864, General Oliphant was sent to Philadelphia to bring all convalescents from the hospitals there to Washington, and, with all communication between the places destroyed by the rebel army, he got twelve hundred men to the capital for the defense of Washington. He made Brigadier General by brevet in 1865, and was honorably discharged in July, 1866.

In the Spring of 1867 General Oliphant moved to Princeton, New Jersey, and was admitted to the Bar of this state at the November term of the same year. He was endorsed for Clerk of the New Jersey Circuit Court of the United States by Judge William Mc Kennan, and was appointed in 1870. General Oliphant had served as Clerk of the United States Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey for thirty-four years. He was appointed Referee in Bankruptcy in 1898.

He was married twice. His first wife died in 1875. By this union there were ten sons.

He died on October 23, 1904.