Deady, Matthew P. (Matthew Paul), 1824-1893

Matthew Paul Deady, son of Daniel and Mary Ann (McSweeny) Deady, was born near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland on May 12, 1824. The Deady family worked a farm first in Maryland and, after 1828, in Wheeling, Virginia. Deady received his early education from his father and later at Wheeling's Lancasterian Academy. In 1837, three years after Mary Ann Deady's death, the family moved to Ohio. From 1841 to 1845 Deady was apprenticed to a blacksmith and, at the same time, attended Barnesville Academy, studying law under Judge Kennon of St. Clairsville, Ohio. Following his course work he taught school in Ohio for about two years at which point he was admitted to the bar.

In 1849 Deady made his way to Oregon, settling in Lafayette and teaching school for a few months during the winter of 1849-50. In March 1850 he established a law practice in Lafayette and shortly thereafter was elected a representative to the Oregon Territorial house of representatives. He served three sessions, and in 1853 was appointed an associate justice for the Oregon Supreme Court's southwest district, based in the Umpqua valley. He was elected Lincoln County delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention in 1857 and ultimately presided over that body. Upon Oregon's admission to the union in 1859, Deady was appointed U. S. District Judge for the district of Oregon by President James Buchanan.

Deady held this position, based in Portland, for the rest of his life. He was an active participant in politics and civic life and was a confidant to many of Oregon's leading political figures, including Joseph Lane, Asahel Bush, James Nesmith and many of Oregon's U. S. Senators. He devoted his personal efforts toward building and supporting many educational and community endeavors. As well as being a founder of the Portland Library Association and the Portland Law School, Deady was a regent of Stanford University and president of University of Oregon's board of regents from 1873 to his death.

Shortly after he had moved to Oregon in 1849, Deady met Lucy Ann Henderson, an Oregon pioneer of 1846 from Missouri. They married in Lafayette on June 24, 1852 and had three sons. Two of them, Paul R. Deady and Edward N. Deady, became lawyers while the third, Henderson B. Deady studied medicine. Matthew's health failed steadily after 1889 as he suffered from spinal troubles and Bright's disease. His lower limbs were partially paralyzed by a stroke in late 1892 and six months later, on March 24, 1893 he died in Portland.

From the guide to the Matthew Paul Deady Papers, 1850-1923, (Oregon Historical Society Research Library)