He grew up as the son of the lawyer Samuel Seldon Partridge in Phelps, New York.
After a typhoid infection forced him to abandon his law studies, he worked as a real estate salesman and in various other jobs in California, before turning to journalism.
The New York Times described it as "an affectionate glance at a seemingly vanished world of parlors and front porches, stereopticon slides and hay-filled barns",[1] and The Atlantic as "an unpretentious, highly anecdotal, and entertaining account of village life".
[2] Partridge's later successful books continued in Country Lawyer's nostalgic vein.
He left behind his wife, Helen Mary Davis Partridge, and their son and daughter.