My Genealogy Hound

ENOS E. MELLON. Cortland County may well be proud of those of her brilliant sons, who so well represent her in legal circles as solicitors, advocates and on the bench. We have the pleasure in this connection of presenting the salient points of the life history of a prominent young attorney and police justice of the village, who though a son by adoption, his birth occurring in County Antrim, Ireland, November 16, 1860, can yet lay claim to as hearty an interest in the county and its welfare as manifested by any who claim Cortland as their birth place. The gentleman to whom we refer is Enos E. Mellon, whose name furnishes the title for this brief biography, and whose portrait appears on another page in proximity to this. When a child of one and a half years he came with his parents to the United States, and made his home with them in the town of Virgil, Cortland County. It was in this town and in Dryden that Mr. Mellon received his early schooling, that furnished so substantial a basis on which to rear a complete structure of legal learning. In August of 1883, he came to the village of Cortland to work for D. F. Wallace, spending three years as clerk in his employ, after which he went on the road as salesman for that gentleman, handling wall paper for a matter of five years. He then began the study of law with Hon. O. U. Kellogg of Cortland, and was admitted to the bar in September, 1891. In the following spring, he opened a law office for general practice, and it was not long before his worth became evident and brought him lucrative returns; active and energetic in his habits, causes in which he is interested are pushed to a speedy termination, which is also very rarely lacking in the elements of success. A stanch and earnest Republican, he was made clerk of the Board of Supervisors in 18S9, and in 1896 was elected police justice, which position he is at present filling with credit to himself and the whole community, and with terror to the whole criminal class.

In the month of February, 1895, Mr. Mellon contracted a matrimonial alliance with Leah Wallace, daughter of D. F. Wallace; one daughter is their only child. Mr. Mellon is a member of St. Bernard Lodge, No. 217, Knights of Pythias, and has been through all the chairs, and is the secretary of the Cortland Agricultural Society, attorney and secretary for the Cortland County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In all his relations to the varied life-phases of the community, Mr. Mellon has borne an honorable part, and is to be commended for his well-directed efforts in suppressing lawlessness and crime, discharging his varied duties with neither fear nor favor.