Boswell, H. James.  American Blue Book Western Washington, Seattle, Lowman and  
Hanford Co., 1922.  p. 182.

JUDGE M. J. GORDON is senior member of the firm of Gordon & Nolte, of Tacoma, 
and former state Supreme Judge.  He is a Canadian by birth and was born in 
1859.  He was educated in New York, and in 1880 was admitted to the bar in 
Minnesota.  From 1882 to 1886 he served as district attorney of Brown county, 
S. D.  Judge Gordon located in Washington in 1890.  From 1892 to 1895 he was 
on the Thurston county Superior bench and from 1895 to 1900 on the Supreme 
bench, resigning the position to enter private practice in Spokane, where he 
remained until 1909, and then located in Tacoma.  While a resident of South 
Dakota, Judge Gordon served as chairman of the judiciary committee of the 
first legislature in 1889.  He was also a member of the constitutional 
conventions of 1886 and 1889.  Judge Gordon has appeared before the courts of 
Washington and other commonwealths, in the role of counsel for either the 
defendant or the plaintiff.  He feels that every thing should be done above 
board, while at the same time, exerting every legitimate, honorable effort for 
the protection of the client's interest, and in this manner has carried to 
successful conclusion much difficult litigation.  judge Gordon is a man of 
unusual civic pride, and in every movement of any moment, calculated to 
advance the material interests of Tacoma especially, and Washington, 
generally, he has always and at all times been among those first to response.  
Judge Gordon married Miss Jennie Thompson, in 1879, and the couple have two 
children, a son and a daughter.  He is a Mason, Shriner and Elk, and is a 
member of the Union club and the county, state and national bar association.

Submitted by: Judy Bivens

* * * * 

Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project.  Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.