Ames, James Barr (22 June 1846–08 January 1910), dean of Harvard Law School, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Samuel Tarbell Ames, a merchant, and Mary Hartwell Barr. Ames attended the Brimmer School and the Boston Latin School. He enrolled at Harvard College in 1863, receiving an A.B. in 1868. During the next two years he taught at a private school and toured Europe....
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Article
Ames, James Barr (1846-1910), dean of Harvard Law School
Kathleen A. Mahoney
Article
Breaux, Joseph Arsenne (1838-1926), jurist and educator
Clark Robenstine
Breaux, Joseph Arsenne (18 February 1838–23 July 1926), jurist and educator, was born at Bayou Goula in Iberville Parish, Louisiana, the son of John B. Breaux and Margaret Walsh, planters. After completing his undergraduate work at Georgetown College in Kentucky, Breaux studied law at the University of Louisiana (now Tulane) and graduated in 1859. Admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1860, he opened his law office in New Iberia. In 1861 Breaux married Eugenia Mille; they had no children....
Article
Cahn, Edmond Nathaniel (1906-1964), lawyer, law teacher, and legal philosopher
Edward M. Wise
Cahn, Edmond Nathaniel (17 January 1906–09 August 1964), lawyer, law teacher, and legal philosopher, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Edgar Mayer Cahn, a prominent lawyer, and Minnie Sarah Cohen. He attended public schools and then Tulane University, from which he received a B.A. in 1925 and a J.D. in 1927....
Article
Clark, Charles Edward (19 December 1889–13 December 1963), lawyer, law professor, dean of Yale Law School, and federal appellate judge
Peter Charles Hoffer
Clark, Charles Edward (19 December 1889–13 December 1963), lawyer, law professor, dean of Yale Law School, and federal appellate judge, was born in Woodbridge, Connecticut, the son of Samuel Clark, a successful dairy farmer, and Pauline Marquand. Clark kept farmer’s hours, believed in the redeeming virtue of hard work and candor, and accepted the conventional personal and family mores of New England Calvinism. His political opinions would change from New England Republicanism to New Deal Democracy, but his personal values remained a constant, rooted in many generations of Connecticut yeomanry....
Article
Daly, Charles Patrick (1816-1899), jurist and author
Barry T. Ryan
Daly, Charles Patrick (31 October 1816–19 September 1899), jurist and author, was born in New York City, the son of Michael Daly, a carpenter and hotel manager, and Elizabeth (maiden name unknown). Daly attended a parochial school for a short time. Following the death of Daly’s mother, his father remarried, and after his father’s death, Daly was left in the care of his stepmother. At age thirteen he fled his home and settled briefly in Savannah, Georgia, working as an apprentice to a quillmaker. Within a year he left Savannah and went to sea for two years. Returning to New York City in 1832, he was apprenticed to a cabinetmaker. At night he educated himself through reading at the library of the Mechanic’s and Tradesman’s Society and participation in a literary society. In 1836 he exchanged the cabinetmaker’s apprenticeship for one in a law office. He passed the New York bar examination in 1839 and became a junior partner in the same firm....
Article
Danforth, Thomas (1623-1699), magistrate of Massachusetts
Francis J. Bremer
Danforth, Thomas ( November 1623–05 November 1699), magistrate of Massachusetts, was born in Framlingham, Suffolk County, England, and was baptized on 20 November 1623, the son of Nicholas Danforth and Elizabeth (maiden name unknown). His father, a prosperous yeoman who was known as a patron of Puritan divines, decided to emigrate to Massachusetts shortly after the death of his wife in 1634. Nicholas Danforth died in 1638, committing his two sons, Thomas and an elder brother Samuel, to the care of the Reverend ...
Article
Du Ponceau, Pierre Étienne (1760-1844), scholar and lawyer
Gerard W. Gawalt
Du Ponceau, Pierre Étienne (03 June 1760–01 April 1844), scholar and lawyer, was born in St. Martin, Isle of Ré, France, the son of a French army officer. He was trained first for the military, which he had to abandon because of poor eyesight, and then for the Roman Catholic priesthood by Benedictine monks at St. Jean Angely and at the Episcopal College in Poitou. After 1775 Du Ponceau served as a secretary and assistant to minor government officials in Paris and to the philologist Count de Gebelin. He came to the United States in 1777 as secretary and nominal military aide to Prussian army officer Baron ...
Article
Duer, William Alexander (1780-1858), politician, lawyer, and college president
Craig Hanyan
Duer, William Alexander (08 September 1780–30 May 1858), politician, lawyer, and college president, was born in Rhinebeck, New York, the son of Catharine Alexander and William Duer, a patriot entrepreneur whose ventures collapsed in 1792. Duer’s maternal grandfather, Major General William Alexander of New Jersey, claimed the Scottish earldom of Stirling, and through his maternal great-grandfather, ...
Article
Freund, Ernst (30 January 1864–20 October 1932), professor of law and political science
Paul D. Carrington
Freund, Ernst (30 January 1864–20 October 1932), professor of law and political science, was born in New York City, the son of Ludwig A. Freund and Nannie Bayer. His parents were natives of Berlin, Germany; before 1875 they returned to that city, and Freund was educated there. He was awarded a doctorate (J.U.D.) in canon and civil law at Heidelberg in 1884, and in that year he elected to return to New York as a native citizen. There he studied law and politics at Columbia University, where his mentor was ...
Article
Goodnow, Frank Johnson (1859-1939), professor of public administration, university president, and government adviser
Michael Tolley
Goodnow, Frank Johnson (18 January 1859–15 November 1939), professor of public administration, university president, and government adviser, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Abel Franklin Goodnow, a cutlery manufacturer, and Jane Maria Root. In 1879 he graduated from Amherst College. Before enrolling at Columbia University Law School he worked briefly in a broker’s office. While at law school he took courses in the School of Political Science, begun in 1880 by ...
Article
Gould, James (1770-1838), lawyer and judge
Lewis L. Gould
Gould, James (05 December 1770–11 May 1838), lawyer and judge, was born in Branford, Connecticut, the son of William Gould, a doctor, and Mary Foote. As a boy he suffered from gout, which affected his eyesight. He was educated at home and then in local schools. In 1787 he entered Yale College, where he had to have books read to him. Despite his poor eyesight, Gould graduated first in his class and delivered the salutatory oration “On the Origin and Progress of History, and the Utility of Historic Knowledge,” for which he received the Noah Webster Prize. In college he was known as “a remarkably handsome young man of elegant figure and graceful manners” (Fisher, p. 17)....
Article
Hays, Paul Raymond (1903-1980), educator and federal judge
Marian C. McKenna
Hays, Paul Raymond (02 April 1903–13 February 1980), educator and federal judge, was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Everett Hollingsworth Hays and Fae Susan Hatch. The family moved to New York City, where Hays would spend the rest of his life. In 1924 he married Eleanor K. Williams. They had one child. He received his A.B. (1924), M.A. (1927), and LL.B. (1933) from Columbia College and its Law School. While still in graduate school, he also taught Greek and Latin at Columbia from 1926 to 1932....
Article
Howard, Timothy Edward (1837-1916), professor, legislator, and judge
Walter F. Pratt
Howard, Timothy Edward (27 January 1837–09 July 1916), professor, legislator, and judge, was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Martin Howard and Julia Beahan, farmers. Howard enrolled in the University of Michigan after attending “common schools” and a seminary in Ypsilanti but left during his sophomore year because of an illness in his family. He taught in rural Michigan schools for two years before entering Notre Dame in 1859. In February 1862, before he had graduated, he enlisted in the Twelfth Michigan Infantry. His friends would later recall that he had enlisted without telling anyone at Notre Dame. He served only two months before he was seriously wounded in the battle of Shiloh. Although he recovered, the wound was so severe that he was discharged as unfit for further service....
Article
Ii, John Papa (03 August 1800–02 May 1870), native Hawaiian jurist and historian
David W. Shideler
Ii, John Papa (03 August 1800–02 May 1870), native Hawaiian jurist and historian, was born at Waipio, Ewa, Oahu Island, Kingdom of Hawaii, the son of Malamaekeeke and Wanaoa, descendants of the chiefs of Hawaii Island. Ii’s family were intimates and junior relatives of the ruling royal family, the Kamehameha dynasty. He was named Papa Ii (pronounced ēē) after an uncle who held a particularly high station in the Kamehameha court. He took the name John (Ioane) upon his conversion to Christianity. John Papa Ii was born into the aristocracy of ancient Hawaii and was a child of privilege. The family had been granted the rich lands at Waipio following the conquest of Oahu by King ...
Article
Robinson, Conway (1805-1884), lawyer, historian, and author
E. Lee Shepard
Robinson, Conway (15 September 1805–30 January 1884), lawyer, historian, and author, was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of John Robinson, a respected local superior court clerk, and Agnes Conway Moncure. Educated in local schools, Conway was the only one of his father’s six sons not to attend college. Instead, he followed in John Robinson’s footsteps and was apprenticed at age fourteen to Thomas C. Howard, clerk of the Richmond City Hustings Court. In 1826 Conway Robinson himself became deputy clerk of the Virginia general court and in the same year published an updated edition of ...
Article
Rostow, Eugene Victor Debs (1913-2002), legal scholar and government official
Ann T. Keene
Rostow, Eugene Victor Debs (25 August 1913–26 November 2002), legal scholar and government official, was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Victor A. Rostow, a metallurgical engineer, and Lillian Helman Rostow. His mother was the daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father, also Jewish, had emigrated from Russia in 1904. Both parents were ardent socialists and named their first child after ...
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Rostow, Eugene Victor Debs (1913-2002)
In
Eugene Victor Rostow. Charcoal and pastel on colored paper, c.1968, by Gardner Cox. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
Article
Stallo, Johann Bernhard (1823-1900), jurist and philosopher
Robert C. Vitz
Stallo, Johann Bernhard (16 March 1823–06 January 1900), jurist and philosopher, was born in Seirhausen, Oldenburg, Germany, the son of Johann Heinrich Stallo, a schoolmaster, and Maria Adelheid Moormann. Under the tutelage of his father and grandfather, also a schoolmaster, Stallo gained a solid education, especially in mathematics, along with fluency in English, French, and the classical languages. At the age of thirteen he entered the Catholic normal school at Vechta, where he had his first exposure to German philosophy. Limited family resources precluded university study, and to avoid becoming a country schoolteacher, he immigrated to Cincinnati in 1839, following the path of an uncle who had succeeded as a printer in that city. The sixteen-year-old boy quickly secured a teaching position at a local parochial school. Recognizing a need for a German primer, in 1840 he wrote ...
Article
Taylor, Telford (1908-1998), attorney and prosecutor
Ann T. Keene
Taylor, Telford (24 February 1908–23 May 1998), attorney and prosecutor, was born in Schenectady, New York, to John Bellamy Taylor, an electrical engineer, and Marcia Estabrook Jones Taylor, both of whom were descendants of seventeenth-century New England colonists. Young Telford attended local public and private schools and received his undergraduate education at Williams College, receiving his B.A. degree in political science in 1928. He remained at Williams as an instructor for a year after graduation and then entered Harvard Law School in the fall of 1929. An outstanding student in law school, he was appointed to the staff of the ...
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Taylor, Telford (1908-1998)
In
Telford Taylor. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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