CHARLES WILLIS NEEDHAM
NEEDHAM, CHARLES WILLIS, lawyer, educator, dean of the School of Comparative Jurisprudence and Diplomacy, Columbian university, and president of the George Washington university (formerly Columbian university), Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Castile, New York, September 30, 1848. His father, Charles Rollin Needham, was a farmer, a man of "great steadiness in the performance of all personal, civil and: religious duties." To his mother, Arvilla Reed Needham, her son ascribes a strong influence both on his intellectual life and on his aspirations, morally and spiritually. His earliest known ancestor in America, Anthony Needham, landed at Salem, Massachusetts, 1652. Two of his progenitors took part in our early wars—Joseph Needham, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war, and on the "Lexington Alarm," 1775; and Calvin Needham, who served in the War of 1812.
The usual work of the farm occupied him as a boy, and he speaks of his "love of nature and of meditation." After preparation in the private and public schools of Castile, he was graduated from the Albany law school, 1869. He began the practice of law in Castile, New York, but removed to Morris, Illinois, and practising there until 1876, removed to Chicago, where he remained until 1890, since which year he has made Washington, District of Columbia, his home. He assisted in organizing the Chicago university, and was a member of its first board of trustees. He was a trustee of the Morgan Park theological seminary, and a member of the Union League club. President McKinley, in 1900, appointed him a delegate to the Congrès International de Droit Compare, also a delegate to the Congrès International des Chemins de Fer, while the commissioners of the District of Columbia appointed him a delegate to the Congrès International D'Assistance Publique et de Bienfaisance Privée; all of which congresses met in Paris.
During his residence at Washington, District of Columbia, he was elected dean of the Schools of Law of Columbian university and
