Charles F. Tabor
Charles Franklin Tabor (June 28, 1841 – March 3, 1915) was an American lawyer and Democratic politician from New York. He was born in St. Joseph County, Michigan, moved with his family to Newstead, New York in 1843, and studied at local academies and a seminary in Lima. He went to Buffalo to study law in 1861 and was admitted to the bar in 1863. On December 24, 1863, he married Phebe S. Andrews, and they had a daughter named Georgia E. Tabor.
Tabor formed several law firms, first with Judge Thomas Corlett in 1868, then with William F. Sheehan. In 1888 the firm became Tabor, Sheehan, Cunneen & Coatsworth, and later he led the firm Tabor & Wilkie. He served as Supervisor of Lancaster (1881–82) and was an excise commissioner of Erie County for three years.
As a Democrat, Tabor was a member of the New York State Assembly (Erie County, 4th District) in 1876–77. He was New York Attorney General from 1888 to 1891, elected in 1887 and again in 1889. He opposed the Sugar Trust as a monopoly. As attorney general, he argued the electrocution law’s constitutionality before the U.S. Supreme Court and won, and the Court also upheld taxing a corporation’s capital stock even when the stock consisted of government bonds.
In 1899, he ran for a seat on the New York Supreme Court but was defeated. Charles F. Tabor died in Buffalo, New York, on March 3, 1915, at the age of 73.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:23 (CET).