Edward Teare Taubman, born December 18, 1853, near Cleveland, Ohio, moved to Iowa with his family in the year of his birth. Growing up near Maquoketa, he received his education at local public schools and Clinton Commercial College. Initially a teacher, Taubman studied law under Cotton & Wolfe in DeWitt, Iowa, and was admitted to the Clinton County bar in 1878. After practicing in Delmar and Spencer, he relocated to Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1883, becoming a prominent attorney. Elected prosecuting attorney in 1889, he served both before and after South Dakota’s statehood. Taubman was a staunch Republican, advocating for the gold standard. A distinguished Mason, he achieved the thirty-third degree. He married Margaret Kennedy in 1879, and they had three children: Genevieve, Olive T., and Morton McKinley.
Edward Teare Taubman was born December 18, 1853, near the city of Cleveland, Ohio, where his parents, Edward and Margaret (Teare) Taubman, natives of the Isle of Man, settled the preceding fall. The year of his birth witnessed the family’s emigration to Iowa, in which state he spent his childhood and youth, growing to young manhood near the town of Maquoketa, where he also received his preliminary education by attending the public schools. The training thus received was supplemented later by a business course in the Clinton Commercial College, after which he followed teaching for four or five years, during which time he also taught classes in penmanship at different places. While thus engaged, Mr. Taubman began the study of law under the direction of Cotton & Wolfe, leading attorneys of DeWitt, Iowa, and in September, 1878, was admitted to the Clinton County bar, immediately following which he began practicing his profession in the town of Delmar. After spending some months at that place, he moved to Spencer, the same state, where he practiced until 1883, in March of which year he closed up his business in Iowa and came to South Dakota, locating at Aberdeen, where he opened an office and in due season secured a liberal share of patronage. Twenty years ago and more Aberdeen appears to have been a mecca for lawyers, Mr. Taubman having been the seventy-fourth legal light to swing his shingle to the breeze, of which large number but five besides the subject are in active practice in the city at the present time, namely, C. N. Harris, John H. Perry, C. J. Hute, A. W. Campbell, and Captain Houser.
Mr. Taubman’s professional career since coming west has been eminently successful and, as already indicated, he is now recognized not only as one of the leading members of the Brown County bar, but stands as the peer of any of his contemporaries in the northeastern part of the state. Thoroughly grounded in the basic principles of jurisprudence, he is able and patient in the preparation of his cases; in the trial of them, he is skillful, resourceful, and fertile in expedient. In the preparation of a case and presenting it to court or jury, he has few equals in discovering in advance the controlling points and so marshaling the testimony and handling it in argument as to produce the conviction that the cause of his client is just and ought to prevail. He is an excellent judge of human nature, remarkably conversant with the modes of thought on the part of jurors, and with these and other equally admirable qualifications, notably his power as a public speaker, he is especially forcible and uniformly successful in jury trials. Since 1885 he has confined himself closely to his practice, which in the meanwhile has grown greatly, his services being retained in nearly all the leading cases in his own and neighboring counties, to say nothing of important business in higher courts of the state. In 1889 he was elected prosecuting attorney and served as such two years, being the last person to hold the office in
Brown County under the territorial government and the first after the admission of South Dakota to statehood. Politically, Mr. Taubman is staunchly and uncompromisingly Republican, and has always stood firmly for the traditional principles of the party, remaining true to the same when the majority of the Republicans in the western states and the territories were deluded and carried away by the popular fallacy of free silver. Believing in a strong and stable currency, based upon the gold standard, he took issue with the plank in the platform favoring the ratio of sixteen to one and unlimited coinage, defended his position on the platform, and, through the medium of the press and despite the formidable opposition arrayed against him, made his influence felt and did much to redeem the party from the error into which it had been thrown under the direction of unwise leadership. Rather than sacrifice his honest convictions, he preferred to fight the battle for sound money alone, but his able arguments gained many adherents, and he came out of the contest with the respect of his political foes of both parties as well as the admiration of those who successfully resisted all attempts to be led away by false and pernicious theories. Mr. Taubman has been a delegate to many conventions, local, district, and state, and his influence in these bodies has had not a little to do in making of platforms, shaping the policy of the party, and contributing to its success at the polls. He is nevertheless more of a lawyer than a politician and, being devoted to his profession, makes it paramount to every other consideration, his aim having always been to rise superior to mere expediency, and become thorough in all branches of legal knowledge and efficient in applying the same to practice. Mr. Taubman is one of the leading Masons of South Dakota, having taken all the degrees in the order up to and including the thirty-third, being one of a very few men in the west to reach that exalted station. He is an active member of the supreme council of the state, has attended several councils and consistories, and the high position in every branch of the order with which he has been honored attests his popularity and standing among his fellow Masons of South Dakota and elsewhere. As indicated above, he has taken every degree that can be conferred in the United States, which fact has made his name familiar to the brotherhood throughout the entire country and today there are few Masons on this side of the Atlantic more widely or familiarly known.
On June 26, 1879, Judge Taubman was united in marriage with Miss Margaret Kennedy, of Ohio, the ceremony being solemnized in Linn County, Iowa, where the bride was living at that time. Mrs. Taubman is an educated and cultured lady, taught school for some years, after graduating from an educational institution of high grade, and is an active and popular member of St. Mark’s Episcopal church of Aberdeen, also belongs to the Ladies’ Guild of that denomination, under the auspices of which she has been prominent in religious circles, not only in her home city, but in a number of states, especially in the east. She has borne her husband three children, the oldest of whom, a daughter by the name of Genevieve, is now a student at Cornell College, in the junior year; Olive T., the second, is attending the Aberdeen high school, and the youngest, who answers to the name of Morton McKinley, is also pursuing his studies in the schools of the latter city.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.