Attorney/Judge William D. Wallace

William D. Wallace was born in New Castle in May 1857, the son of James and Agnes (Davis) Wallace. His father, who died in 1887, was a very prominent doctor in New Castle. After high school Wallace attended Westminster College where he graduated with high honors in 1881. He then began studying law in the offices of the Dana & Long firm in New Castle, where he was soon admitted as a partner. In 1885 he was married to the former Beatrice Matthews and they had a daughter. In 1893 the county was granted a separate judicial district for the first time, and Wallace was elected as the second-ever county judge in November 1894. He served as President Judge from 1895-1905 and one of his most famous cases involved Frank Jongrass, who Wallace sentenced to death in 1897 for murdering his girlfriend in Hillsville. Wallace subsequently returned to his private law practice in New Castle and also served as a longtime director with the Morganza Training School (reform school) in Canonsburg. Wallace later trained and accepted Samuel Clark as a partner in his law firm. Wallace died at the age of sixty-two in December 1919 and was laid to rest in Oak Park Cemetery. (c1900) Full Size