PHILLIPS, JESSE S., state superintendent of insurance, New York, was born in the town of Independence, Allegany county, N. Y., May 4, 1871. His early boyhood was spent on his father's farm. He received his early education in district schools and the Andover High School, from which he graduated with high honors. He later entered the University of Michigan, for a course in law, from which institution he was graduated in 1893. The year following his graduation, he was admitted to practice, and opened a law office at Andover, N. Y., where he was very successful in the practice of his profession. In 1898, he was elected supervisor of Andover, and in 1899 was reelected for two years, and during his three years' experience as supervisor, he served on several important committees, and was recognized as a leader on that Board. In 1900 he was nominated and elected a member of the legislature from Allegany county and represented the county in the state legislature continuously until 1912. During this period, he was a member of numerous important committees, including the Ways and Means, Rules, Codes and Judiciary, of which latter two he was chairman for several sessions. He was also a member of the Special Joint Educational Committee of the Senate and Assembly in 1903, which recommended the unification educational system now in force in this State, and vice-chairman of the Special Joint Legislative Committee appointed in 1909 to investigate the direct primary system. In 1912, he declined a re-nomination to the State Legislature, and moved to Hornell, N. Y., where he formed a law partnership with Fred A. Robbins and Shirley E. Brown. Two years later, he became the head of the law firm of Phillips, Brown & Greene, of which firm he was the senior member at the time of his appointment as superintendent of insurance by Governor Whitman in April 1915. He was a delegate to the recent New York State Constitutional Convention and acted as chairman of the Committee on Library and Information, ranking member of Legislative powers, and a member of the Committee on Banking and Insurance. He is, and for some years has been, the president of the Burrows National Bank of Andover, N. Y., and recently was elected one of the directors of the First National Bank of Hornell, N. Y.
Source: Annual Cyclopedia Of Insurance In The United States, established in 1891 by H.R. Hayden, published by R.B. Caverly, Publisher, 38 Park Row, New York, 1919; Pgs. 570-571
