On March 23, 1885, Edward John Phelps was appointed U.S. Minister to Great Britain by President Cleveland. The rest of the country was a little surprised, but Vermonters weren’t shocked at all.

They knew Phelps, a Middlebury native, as a top-notch lawyer who had (can you imagine?) run for governor as a Democrat! Vermont was staunchly Republican, making Phelps small margin of defeat most remarkable.

Phelps helped found the American Bar Association and was a Kent Professor of Law at Yale. In 1893, Phelps also served as senior council for the U.S. in an international fishing boundary dispute.

Image courtesy the Vermont Historical Society.