Robert Treat Paine Papers, Volume 4
Mr. Smith1 has been reading Law with me2 the usual time required by the establishd Rules in the several Counties in this State, to be spent in a Lawyer’s office in order to be admitted as an Attorney. And there is no objection made agt. his being admitted in this County, on Account of any Deficiency in his Natural Abilities, or Understanding of the Law. But some objections have been made against him on account of his Character in the Common Wealth of Massachusetts. And as you are well acquainted with him I should take it as a favour if you would send me an Answer to the following Question, viz. is the Character of Mr. Smith in the Common Wealth of Massachusetts So bad in your opinion that he ought not to be admitted as an Attorney, provided that he is in other Respects suitably qualified for admission? By granting my Request you will much oblige your Huml. Servt.
Jeremiah Smith (1759–1859) was a 1780 graduate of Queen’s College (now Rutgers) and read law with Shearjashub Bourne in Sandwich, Mass., with William Pynchon in Salem, Mass., and finally with Newcomb in Keene, N.H. After this initial concern for Smith’s qualifications, he was admitted to the New Hampshire 386 bar, practiced in Peterborough and Exeter, served in Congress, was U.S. district attorney for the state, and later became judge of probate (Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, 58–59).
Daniel Newcomb (1747–1818) was originally from Norton, Mass., and graduated from Harvard (A.B., 1768). He read law with Jonathan Sewall and John Lowell and moved to Keene, N.H., where he practiced law from 1778. He briefly sat as judge of the Court of Common Pleas for Cheshire County and as a justice of the Superior Court. Newcomb’s “talents were above mediocrity, but not pre-eminent” (Bell, Bench and Bar of New Hampshire, 51; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 17:60–63).