Horace P. Biddle
Justice of theIndiana Supreme Court
In office 1875–1881
Personal details
Born	Horace Peters Biddle (1811-03-24)March 24, 1811 Hocking County, Ohio
Died	May 13, 1900(1900-05-13) (aged 89) Logansport, Indiana
Party	Whig Republican
Spouses	Elema Ward ​ ​ (m. 1832; died 1834)​ Anna Maria Matlack ​ (m. 1846)​
Occupation	Jurist, writer

Horace Peters Biddle (March 24, 1811 – May 13, 1900) was alawyer,judge,poet,musicologist, and famoushermit.

Horace P. Biddle was born on what was then the frontier in present-dayHocking County,Ohio on March 24, 1811.^[1] He was the youngest of nine children and was largely raised by his oldest sister after the death of his mother when Biddle was five. After working for seven years for his brother Daniel, a store owner, he caught the attention of lawyer and future Ohio SenatorThomas Ewing who advised him to study law and found a place for him in the office ofHocking H. Hunter. After being admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1839, Biddle moved toLogansport,Indiana and opened a practice there. From 1847 to 1852 he served as the presiding judge of theCarroll County circuit.^[2] In 1850 he was a member of the state constitutional convention. In 1852 he resigned from the circuit court and ran for United States Representative on theWhig Party ticket but was unsuccessful. He was elected as aRepublican to theIndiana Supreme Court in 1857, but the court decided that the vacancy, created by a resignation, could be filled by the governor by appointment. He was nominated again for the position in 1858, but was not elected.^[3] Biddle instead served two 6-year terms as Carroll County circuit court judge (1860–1872). In 1872 Biddle was nominated for a Congressional seat by the Democratic and Independent Reform conventions, but declined the nomination and endorsedUlysses S. Grant's re-election.^[4] In 1874 he was nominated by the Democratic and Independent Reform slates for Supreme Court justice^[5] and was elected; he served from January 1875 to January 1881.

Biddle was also a poet who published a number of works; his work was praised byWashington Irving and others. He published several works on literary theory, includingThe Definition of Poetry (1873) andThe Analysis of Rhyme (1876). He translated a number of works (The Swallow byLamartine, for example) and published a book onRussian literature. He published several works on sound and music theory, includingThe Musical Scale (1860), aReview ofTyndall on Sound (1872), and a pamphlet describing an instrument of his invention called thetetrachord.^[6]

In his last years Biddle became rather reclusive, rarely leaving his home in Logansport, which was on a 17-acre island in theWabash River known asBiddle Island. He died there on May 13, 1900.^[1] His will was not found until six months later; his estate, including a 9,000 volume library and the 17 acre island property, went largely to his niece Eva Peters Reynolds.^[7]

Biddle married Elema Ward on April 19, 1832; she died June 12, 1834. They had one child, who died as an infant.^[8] Biddle married Anna Maria Matlack (1824?-1900) on June 8, 1846; after 1847 they separated, although they never divorced.^[9]

• Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court
• Poets from Ohio
• American literary theorists
• American musicologists
• 1811 births
• 1900 deaths
• Indiana Republicans
• Writers from Ohio
• Delegates to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention
• 19th-century American poets
• American male poets
• American hermits
• 19th-century American male writers
• People from Hocking County, Ohio
• 19th-century Indiana state court judges
• 19th-century American musicologists

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