Montgomery Morrison Cothren (1819-1888) was a Mineral Point lawyer, Wisconsin territorial legislator, 1847 and 1848; state senator, 1850 and 1851; and Fifth Judicial Circuit judge, 1852-1865 and 1876-1882. He was born at Jerusalem, Yates County, New York, September 18, 1819. He attended public schools until he was about ten years old, when his family moved from New York to the Michigan Territory. This ended his formal education, but he continued to study and self-educate himself, particularly in the field of law. Around 1839 he came to Wisconsin and settled at New Diggings, where he spent the next four years teaching school and studying law. In 1843 he was made clerk of the Iowa County board and moved to Mineral Point, then the county seat. There, after being admitted to the State Bar in 1843, he opened a law office. He practiced law until he was elected to the lower house of the territorial legislature in 1847 and 1848. In 1850 and 1851 he was elected state senator and served as the chair-man of the judicial committee and as a member of the commission that collected the general laws of Wisconsin into the Revised Statutes of 1849.
When his senate term expired Cothren widened the scope of his political activities. In 1852 he was a Democratic presidential elector. In the same year he ran for judge of the fifth judicial circuit on the Democratic ticket and was elected, serving for twelve years. In 1863 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. When his second term expired Cothren refused renomination and resumed his law practice at Mineral Point. However, he ran again and was elected circuit judge in 1876. During this term he twice campaigned unsuccessfully for other offices. In 1879 he ran for associate justice of the Supreme Court and in 1880 for Congress. He sought re-election to the circuit court in 1882, but was defeated by George Clementson. Judge Cothren returned again to Mineral Point and resumed his private practice. However, he retained his interest in political affairs, and when he died on October 27, 1888, just ten days before the election, he was a Democratic candidate for the state senate.
