The New International Encyclopædia/Noble, John Willock

NOBLE, John Willock (1831—). An American lawyer and Cabinet officer, born at Lancaster, Ohio. After a year at Miami University, he entered Yale, where he graduated in 1851. He then studied law at Columbus and Cincinnati, removed to Saint Louis in 1855, and a year later settled in the practice of his profession at Keokuk, Iowa. There he took a prominent part in politics, and in 1859-60 was city attorney. In 1861 he enlisted in the Third Iowa Volunteer Cavalry as a private, gradually rose to the rank of colonel, and was brevetted brigadier-general at the close of the war. Settling again at Saint Louis after the war, he was United States District Attorney for the eastern district of Missouri from 1867 to 1870. He was Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Harrison from 1889 to 1893, after which he resumed his law practice in Saint Louis.