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Thomas Graves (judge)
Thomas Graves or Greaves (1684–June 19, 1747) was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature from 1737 to 1738. Appointed by Governor Jonathan Belcher, he served as a temporary replacement for Edmund Quincy while the latter was in England on other business, and was replaced after Quincy's death by Stephen Sewall. Graves was born in Charlestown and graduated from Harvard College in 1703. His father, also named Thomas, was a magistrate in Middlesex County best known for denouncing the Salem witch trials of 1692. Graves was trained as a medical doctor, but was drawn into legal work with an appointment as a special judge in Middlesex County in 1731. He was eventually appointed to that county's court of common pleas, where he served until his temporary appointment to the provincial high court in 1737. Edmund Quincy, whose seat he took, was sent to England as a commissioner concerning the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire, died in England ...
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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the distinction of being the oldest continuously functioning appellate court in the Americas, with a recognized history dating to the establishment of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature in 1692 under the charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Although it was historically composed of four associate justices and one chief justice, the court is currently composed of six associate justices and one chief justice. History The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court traces its history back to the high court of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay, which was chartered in 1692. Under the terms of that charter, Governor Sir William Phips established the Superior Court of Judicature as the province's local court of last resort (some of the court's decisions could be appealed to cour ...
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Jonathan Belcher
Jonathan Belcher (8 January 1681/8231 August 1757) was a merchant, politician, and slave trader from colonial Massachusetts who served as both governor of Massachusetts Bay and governor of New Hampshire from 1730 to 1741 and governor of New Jersey from 1747 to 1757. Born into a wealthy Massachusetts merchant family (his father Andrew Belcher was a tavern owner in Cambridge and grandfather who immigrated to Massachusetts Bay from England), Belcher attended Harvard College and then entered into the family business and local politics. He was instrumental in promoting Samuel Shute as governor of Massachusetts in 1715, and sat on the colony's council, but became disenchanted with Shute over time and eventually joined the populist faction of Elisha Cooke Jr. After the sudden death of Governor William Burnet in 1729 Belcher successfully acquired the governorships of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. During his tenure, Belcher politically marginalized those who he perceived as op ...
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Edmund Quincy (1681–1737)
Edmund Quincy III (; 1681–1737) was an American merchant and judge. He was the son of Col. Edmund Quincy II (1627-1698) II and his second wife, Elizabeth Gookin. He married Dorothy Flynt and had 7 children. Four lived to adulthood, including Edmund Quincy IV and Dorothy Quincy, who was the topic of a famous poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Life Like his father and grandfather, he was deeply involved with the affairs of the Massachusetts colony. He was a magistrate, Supreme Court judge from 1718 until his death, and a colonel in the Massachusetts militia. In 1737, he was appointed to a commission to settle the boundary between Massachusetts and New Hampshire."Genealogical and Personal Memoirs," Cutter, p. 593 However, he contracted smallpox and died before his return to Massachusetts. The colony built a monument at his grave in Brunhill Fields Burial Ground in London and gave in Lenox to his family as a tribute for all of his efforts. See also Quincy political family The ...
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Stephen Sewall
Stephen Sewall (December 14, 1702 – September 10, 1760) was a judge in colonial Massachusetts. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, he was the son of Stephen Sewall, the clerk of court at the Salem witchcraft trials, and a nephew of Chief Justice Samuel Sewall, who presided at the witchcraft trials. He was the uncle of lawyer Jonathan Sewall and of the poet, lawyer and patriot, Jonathan Mitchell Sewall of Portsmouth, NH. He attended Harvard University, graduating in 1721. Although never formally trained as a lawyer or admitted to the bar, he was appointed first as an associate justice, and then as Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature, the highest court in the colony. He also served on the Massachusetts Governor's Council, which was then the upper house of the Massachusetts General Court. He was generally respected by both friends (the "court party") and foes (the "popular party") of royal government. Sewall's death in Boston in 1760 was followed by contro ...
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Charlestown, Massachusetts
Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic River and Boston Harbor waterways. Charlestown was laid out in 1629 by engineer Thomas Graves, one of its earliest settlers, during the reign of Charles I of England. It was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Charlestown became a city in 1848 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874. With that, it also switched from Middlesex County, to which it had belonged since 1643, to Suffolk County. It has had a substantial Irish-American population since the migration of Irish people during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Since the late 1980s, the neighborhood has changed dramatically because of its proximity to downtown and its colonial architecture. A mix of yuppie and uppe ...
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Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. Part of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard College is Harvard University's traditional undergraduate program, offering AB and SB degrees. It is highly selective, with fewer than five percent of applicants being offered admission in recent years. Harvard College students participate in more than 450 extracurricular organizations and nearly all live on campus—first-year students in or near Harvard Yard, and upperclass students in community-oriented "houses". History The school came into existence in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—though without a single building, instructor, or student. In 1638, the c ...
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Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Middlesex County is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,632,002, making it the most populous county in both Massachusetts and New England and the 22nd most populous county in the United States. Middlesex County is one of two U.S. counties (along with Santa Clara County, California) to be amongst the top 25 counties with the highest household income and the 25 most populated counties. It is included in the Census Bureau's Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA– NH Metropolitan Statistical Area. As part of the 2020 United States census, the Commonwealth's mean center of population for that year was geo-centered in Middlesex County, in the town of Natick (this is not to be confused with the geographic center of Massachusetts, which is in Rutland, Worcester County). On July 11, 1997, Massachusetts abolished the executive government of Middlesex County primarily due to the county's insolvency. Middlesex County ...
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Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, 19 of whom were executed by hanging (14 women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail. Arrests were made in numerous towns beyond Salem and Salem Village (known today as Danvers), notably Andover and Topsfield. The grand juries and trials for this capital crime were conducted by a Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 and by a Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, both held in Salem Town, where the hangings also took place. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America. Only fourteen other women and two men had been executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 17th century. The episode is one of Colonial America's most no ...
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Province Of New Hampshire
The Province of New Hampshire was a colony of England and later a British province in North America. The name was first given in 1629 to the territory between the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers on the eastern coast of North America, and was named after the county of Hampshire in southern England by Captain John Mason, its first named proprietor. In 1776 the province established an independent state and government, the State of New Hampshire, and joined with twelve other colonies to form the United States. Europeans first settled New Hampshire in the 1620s, and the province consisted for many years of a small number of communities along the seacoast, Piscataqua River, and Great Bay. In 1641 the communities were organized under the government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, until Charles II issued a colonial charter for the province and appointed John Cutt as President of New Hampshire in 1679. After a brief period as a separate province, the territory was absorbed int ...
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Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. The initial symptoms of the disease included fever and vomiting. This was followed by formation of ulcers in the mouth and a skin rash. Over a number of days, the skin rash turned into the characteristic fluid-filled blisters with a dent in the center. The bumps then scabbed over and fell off, leaving scars. The disease was spread between people or via contaminated objects. Prevention was achieved mainly through the smallpox vaccine. Once the disease had developed, certain antiviral medication may have helped. The risk of death was about 30%, with higher rates among babies. Often, those who survived had extensive scarring of ...
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List Of Justices Of The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Following is a list of justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Current justices Superior Court of Judicature (1692–1775) Justices appointed by the Provincial Congress (1775–80) Three men declined appointment to the Court during this period: William Reed in 1775, Robert Treat Paine in 1776, and James Warren in 1777. Justices under the State Constitution (1780–present) List of justices Notes Sources * {{Justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Judges of the Supreme Court Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
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Justices Of The Massachusetts Superior Court Of Judicature
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility and arguments of the parties, and then issues a ruling in the case based on their interpretation of the law and their own personal judgment. A judge is expected to conduct the trial impartially and, typically, in an open court. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, the judge's powers may be shared with a jury. In inquisitorial systems of criminal investigation, a judge might also be an examining magistrate. The presiding judge ensures that all court proceedings are lawful and orderly. Powers and functions The ultimate task of a judge is to settle a legal dispute in a final and publicly lawful manner in agreement with substantial pa ...
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