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Robert Treat Paine Papers

Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 3

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Extract from the Minutes of the Continental Congress

28 October 1775

From Joseph Palmer

1 November 1775
105
From Perez Morton
Morton, Perez RTP
Council Chamber Watertown Oct. 28 1775 Sir,

I am directed by the Major part of the Council of this Colony, to acquaint you, that by Virtue of the power & Authority, in & by the Royal Charter, in the Abscence of the Governor & Lieutenant Governor, lodged in them, they have seen fit to appoint you, with the Advice & consent of Council, to be One of the Justices of the Superior Court of Judicature &c. for this Colony. The inclosed is a List of your bretheren of the Bench, who are to hold their Seats in the Order therein Arranged. I am further dirrected to request your Honor to signify to the board, in Writing, your Acceptance or Refusal of said Appointment, as soon as may be.1

In the name & by Order of the Council

Perez Morton Dpy. Secry.

List attached to the above letter: Honble. John Adams Esqr. William Cushing Esqr. William Read Esqr.2 Honble. Robt. Treat Paine Esqr. Nath. P. Sargent Esqr.3

RC ; addressed: “To The Honble. Rob: Treat Paine Esqr. at Philadelphia.”

1.

The records of the Council for Oct. 11 note the nomination of John Adams, William Cushing, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargent, William Reed, and Robert Treat Paine (in that order) as justices of the superior court. The Council ordered on Oct. 23 the “Choice of another Justice for the Superiour Court and an Attorney General,” but it postponed those two appointments and does not appear to have returned to them (Council Records, Mass. Archives).

2.

William Read (1710–1780) was admitted as an attorney at the Superior Court in 1759 and barrister in 1762. He was appointed deputy judge of the vice admiralty court in 1760 and a judge of the Suffolk Inferior Court of Common Pleas in 1770. Read declined his appointment to the Superior Court (McKirdy, “State of the Profession,” 351).

3.

Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant (1731–1791), a 1750 Harvard graduate, was the first lawyer at Haverhill and served that town in the Second Provincial Congress. Sargeant declined this appointment to the Superior Court on Dec. 7, 1775, but he accepted when re-elected the following year. He continued on the bench for the rest of his life. Sargeant became chief justice in 1790 but died the following year ( Sibley’s Harvard Graduates , 12:574–580).