Woodward, Augustus Brevoort, , New York 1774 1827 Male Jurist Philosopher jurist and political philosopher, the son of John Woodward, a shopkeeper, and his wife, Ann Silvester, was born in New York City and christened Nov. 6, 1774.
He was named Elias Brevoort for his mother's uncle by marriage, but he later exchanged Elias for Augustus, occasionally using both names.
At fifteen he entered Columbia College, graduating in the class of 1793.
In 1795, while living in Rockbridge County, Va. , he met Thomas Jefferson, whose admirer and friend he became.
After a short residence in Greenbrier County, now in West Virginia, he received a legacy of £150 under the will of Elias Brevoort, and in 1797 went to Georgetown, D. C. , where he engaged in the practice of law and speculated in real estate.
During the years 1801-03 he published under the pseudonym Epaminondas a series of eight pamphlets with the title Considerations on the Government of the Territory of Columbia.
He was employed by Oliver Pollock [q. v. ] to present his claim to Congress, and published his argument, A Representation of the Case of Oliver Pollock, in 1803, with a Supplement to the Representation in the same year; they were reprinted together in 1806.
At the request of citizens of Detroit he passed the winter of 1805-06 in Washington, obtaining needed legislation regarding the title of lands in Michigan.
Woodward was the dominant figure in the court and legislative body of Michigan and was often in opposition to the governor, William Hull [q. v. ].
While there he completed a book which had been in preparation for several years, A System of Universal Science, published in 1816.
An elaborate attempt at a classification of knowledge and the nomenclature of its divisions, it contained the idea which was expanded in 1817 in an act drawn by Woodward and passed by the governor and judges creating the "Catholepistemiad, or University, of Michigania. "
To this institution which began at once to function in a small way upon the appointment of its faculty--the Rev. John Monteith and the Rev. Gabriel Richard [q. v. ], the corporate existence of the University of Michigan has been traced by judicial decision.
A law passed by Congress in 1823 provided that the terms of the judges of Michigan should expire Feb. 1, 1824.
In 1825 he collected and published under the title The Presidency of the United States a series of articles criticizing the Cabinet system which had appeared in the National Journal of Washington.
[Woodward MSS.
in Burton Hist.
Coll. , Detroit Pub.
Lib. ; Mich.
Colls. , vols.
VIII (1886), XII (1887), XXIX (1901); Mich.
Hist.
Soc. , vol.
IV (1901); B. A. Hinsdale, Hist.
of the Univ. of Mich. (1906); Daily Nat.
Intelligencer (Washington, D. C. ,), July 7, 1827. ]
He was a man of strong character, interested in many things, a thorough lawyer, positive and independent in his views, regardless of popularity, somewhat eccentric, and occasionally arbitrary.
Mag. , Oct. 1925; Charles Moore, Governor, Judge, and Priest; Detroit 1805-1815 (1891), and "Augustus Brevoort Woodward, " in Records of the Columbia Hist.
In Florida as well as in Detroit he was active in encouraging movements for intellectual and social improvement.
Woodward never married.
