James Kent
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James Kent (July 31, 1763 Fredericksburg [1], then Dutchess, now Putnam County, New York – December 12, 1847 New York City) was an American jurist and legal scholar.
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[edit] Life
He was the son of Moss Kent, a lawyer from Dutchess County, New York and the first Surrogate of Rensselaer County, New York.[2]
He graduated from Yale College in 1781, having helped establish the Phi Beta Kappa society there in 1780, and began to practice law at Poughkeepsie, New York in 1785 as an attorney, and in 1787 at the bar. In 1791 and 1792-93 Kent was a representative of Dutchess County in the New York State Assembly. In 1793 he removed to New York City, where Governor John Jay, to whom the young lawyer's Federalist sympathies were a strong recommendation, appointed him a master in chancery for the city.
He was the first professor of law in Columbia College in 1793-98 and again served in the Assembly in 1796-97. In 1797 he became recorder of New York, in 1798 a justice of the New York State Supreme Court, in 1804 Chief Justice, and in 1814 chancellor of New York. In 1821 he was a member of the New York State Constitutional Convention. Two years later, Chancellor Kent reached the constitutional age limit and retired from his office, but was re-elected to his former chair. He lived in retirement in Summit, New Jersey between 1837 and 1847 in a simple four-roomed cottage (the original cottage today has been incorporated into a large mansion at 50 Kent Place Boulevard in Summit NJ) which he referred to as 'my Summit Lodge', a name that has been offered as the derivation for the city's name.[3]
[edit] Work
He has been long remembered for his Commentaries on American Law (four volumes, published 1826-1830), highly respected in England and America. The Commentaries treated both state, federal and international law, and the law of personal rights and of property, and went through six editions in Kent's lifetime.
Kent rendered his most essential service to American jurisprudence while serving as chancellor. Chancery, or equity law had been very unpopular during the colonial period, and had received little development, and no decisions had been published. His judgments of this class cover a wide range of topics, and are so thoroughly considered and developed as unquestionably to form the basis of American equity jurisprudence.
[edit] Family
He married Elizabeth Bailey, and they had four children: Elizabeth (died in infancy), Elizabeth, William and Mary.
His brother Moss Kent was a U.S. Representative.
[edit] Monuments and memorials
- Kent County, Michigan is named in his honor, probably because he represented Michigan Territory in its dispute with Ohio over the Toledo Strip.
- Chicago-Kent College of Law is named in his honor.
- The Chancellor Kent Professorship at Columbia Law School is also named after him, as is Kent Hall, which was built for the law school, but which now contains Columbia's departments of East Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures along with its East Asian library. Students who have high honors status (top two to three percent of the class) at Columbia Law School are called James Kent Scholars in honor of James Kent's status as Columbia's first professor of law.
- Kent Place School, an independent all girls school in New Jersey, is located where his summer house was.
- James Kent's original 'Summit Lodge' is now incorporated into a large mansion at 50 Kent Place Boulevard, Summit, NJ. Most of the original architecture including the kitchen and long room still exist today.
[edit] Further reading
- Duer, John, Discourse on the Life, Character, and Public Services of James Kent, New York, 1848.
[edit] External links
- The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York: Commentaries on Chancellor Kent
- James Kent: Commentaries on American Law
- "Autobiographical Sketch of James Kent," Southern Law Review, 1872, pp. 381-91. (PDF)
[edit] Sources
- ^ Fredericksburg comprised at that time the present-day towns of Patterson, Kent, Carmel, Southeast and Pawling
- ^ [1] Court History
- ^ Cheslow, Jerry. "A Transit Hub With a Thriving Downtown", The New York Times, July 13, 1997. Accessed January 28, 2008. "THE name Summit may have been coined by James Kent, retired Chancellor of the Court of Chancery, New York State's highest judicial office, who bought a house on the hill in 1837 and named it Summit Lodge."
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- [2] Political Graveyard
- Google Book The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1849 (his obit on page 326, Charles C. Little & James Brown, Boston, 1848)
| Preceded by John Lansing, Jr. |
Chancellor of New York 1814 – 1823 |
Succeeded by Nathan Sanford |
