Biographical Details
Date of Birth: December 9, 1815
Birth Location: Winchester, KY, USA
Major Study: Law
Graduation Year(s): 1845
Degree(s) Earned: Bachelor of Laws
Date of Death: March 31, 1891
Death Location: Portland, IN, USA
William Bybee Hagins
Life Experience
William Bybee Hagins was born in Kentucky, but then came to Indiana. He was said to have a disability (unspecified) by Theophilus Wylie (Presbyterian minister, college professor, and cousin of IU’s first president, Andrew Wylie). Educated at a private school and then self-taught, Hagins obtained his law degree from IU. He worked as an attorney-at-law before serving as a notary public, justice of the peace, and circuit judge pro tem. He was prevented from entering the Union Army during the Civil War by his disability, but still championed the Union cause as a Republican. For the remaining thirty-five years of his life, he made his living as an attorney and a fire insurance agent.
Interesting Anecdote
In 1855, near the Muscatatuck River in Vernon, Indiana, Hagins built a home, which still stands today as the “W. B. Hagins House.”
References
- Wylie
- Findagrave.com
- ingenweb.org/injennings/pages/histories/