Remembering the REALTORS'® General
SEPTEMBER 2006 - When Brigadier General Nathan W. MacChesney died in September of 1954, The National Association of Real Estate Boards lost a great legal mind and many REALTORS® lost a good friend.
A Chicago native, MacChesney was NAREB's general counsel from 1908 to 1947. He drafted the first model real estate license act (called the MacChesney Act) which served as a basis for license laws in states across the country. He defended the real estate license law principle that was upheld in a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court decision. He also won court decisions on NAREB's exclusive right to the term REALTOR®.
MacChesney's military career spanned the Spanish American War and both World Wars. In World War I he served on General "Black Jack" Pershing's staff with the American Expeditionary Force. A member of the Illinois National Guard since 1893, MacChesney retired from the military in 1951.
NAREB Executive Vice President Herbert U. Nelson remembered the General from the old days. Nelson wrote of MacChesney as "a patriot and statesman in business life as well as in public service. As long as our Association endures, we will be heavily indebted to (his) achievements."
