Stephen Selwyn Harding (February 24, 1808 – February 12, 1891) was an American politician, lawyer, anti-slavery leader and ardent abolitionist in Indiana who served as governor of the Utah Territory (1862–1863) and as chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court (1863–1865). Because Harding proved to be unpopular with the territory's Mormon leaders and citizens, he remained at Salt Lake City for less than a year before President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to the judgeship at Denver. In 1865 Harding returned to Indiana, where he practiced law until his retirement in 1881. Earlier in his political career, Harding helped organize the Liberty Party in Indiana and was the party's candidate for lieutenant governor of Indiana in 1843 and 1846, but lost both races. Harding subsequently became a member of the Free Soil Party in 1848 and was an early member of the Republican Party in Indiana in the 1850s. Early years and education Stephen Selwyn Harding, the eldest son of David E. and Abigail Harding, was born in Palmyra, New York, on February 24, 1808. In 1820, the Harding family moved to Ripley County, Indiana, which was a frontier wilderness at that time. Although Stephen had only about nine months of formal school training, he was an avid reader. Harding studied law in the office of William R. Morris in Brookville, Indiana, and became licensed to practice law on March 17, 1828, at the age of twenty. Career Early years Harding opened a law office in Richmond, Indiana, but he remained there for only six months. As a young and inexperienced lawyer, as well as a newcomer to Richmond, he faced stiff competition from several prominent lawyers in the area that included U.S. Senator James Noble (who later became governor of Indiana) and Oliver H. Smith (who later became a U.S. Senator from Indiana). Harding spent idle time at his law office studying Roman and Greek classics, as well as William Shakespeare's works. In the fall of 1828, Harding took a steamboat from Louisville, Kentucky, to New Orleans, Louisiana, partly to claim personal property of behalf of a client, but also to consider opportunities to establish a law practice in the South. Unable to find employment as a lawyer, he returned to Indiana in the spring of 1829, working his way back home as a clerk on the steamboat Belvedere along the Mississippi River. Harding became an abolitionist as a result