George Richard Lunn, Clergyman, Politician, Ice House Owner

This week, while teaching parol evidence, I taught the case of Mitchill v. Lath, which involves an oral agreement between the parties to tear down an ice house on land to the land their sales agreement was about. A student asked what the deal was with the guy who owned the land the ice house was on, and I admit I didn’t know the deal, so I went and looked it up, and here’s the deal: 

He was George Richard Lunn, a clergyman who was born in Iowa but settled in Schenectady, where he was elected mayor on a Socialist ticket and later served in the House of Representatives and as Lieutenant Governor of New York. I had no idea who Lunn was and thought it was interesting that he turned out to have a Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia page doesn’t mention his role in Mitchill v. Lath but his Prabook entry does.