Ingham County Biographical Sketches



Arlington A. Bergman


Arlington A. Bergman was born October 3, 1870, in Jay Co., Indiana. His parents, George and Elinor Bergman, had four children born to them, of which Arlington was the second son. The names and dates of the birth of the others are as follows: Clement T., December 12, 1867; Nora A., April 9, 1872, the wife of E. A. Hilliard, a resident of Delhi township, Ingham county, and George C., March 1, 1875. At the tender age of five years, Arlington was bereft of his parents. His father died September 19, 1875, at the age of thirty-five and his mother in October, 1875, only a month later.

Our subject received his early education in the district school, and having a natural appetite for books, hemade the most of his opportunities, and at the age of seventeen secured a certificate and began teaching school in the country. For the following eight years teaching was his business, and after some years in the country he was employed in the graded village schools in Mercer Co., Ohio. This was not to be his life's work --- he had greater ambitions, and teaching to him was means to a desired end. He secured books and occupied his spare momemts reading law. He place himself under the totorage of Hon. J. J. M. LaFollette, Dept. U. S. Attorney for the District of Indiana, and in the year 1897, on February 22d, was admittedd to the bar at Portland, Ind. Not being satisfied with his equipment he nentered the Normal University at Eastman, Ind., from which he graduated with honor, June 27, 1899, and was admitted to practice in the supreme court in that state. Only a few days later, July 12th of the same year, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Michigan, and afterwards hung out his shingle for business in the City of Mason.

Mr. Bergman is an impressive speaker, and when he talks "the people fear him gladly." He has built up a good practice and is growning in popular favor. He is City Attorney, and his admiring friends made him the Democratic nominee for the responsible office of Prosecuting Attorney in 1904.

Mr. Bergman rather prides himself on the fact that his athletic sport, while in college, was largely sawing wood with a buck-saw, though not entirely from choice.

Mr. Bergman is a member of the fraternal organization of the K. P. and has lccupied all the chairs in the order officially and is now past chancellor. He is also an Elk. His people were members of the Evangelical church, and while he has no church relations, he is in full sympathy with every means and effort for a better and higher Christian civilization.






Taken from:
"Past and Present of the City of Lansing and Ingham County, Michigan", by Albert E. Cowles.
Published by The Michigan Historical Publishing Association Lansing, MICH., 1905.
Pages 246




Biographies

Michigan Biographies Project




Sondra Higbee