Hugh Maxwell

Background

Hugh Maxwell was born in 1787 in Paisley, Scotland. About 1790 the family emigrated to New York where his father, William Maxwell, operated a distillery and a tallow chandlery.

Education

Hugh was educated at Columbia College, graduating in 1808, nineteenth in a class of twenty-one members.

Career

Owing to his participation in the "riotous commencement" of 1811, the A. M. degree in course which he was to have received at that time was withheld until 1816. Maxwell, at the commencement of 1811 held in Trinity Church, took the part of one of the candidates who had been refused his degree, and addressed the audience on behalf of the student. Gulian C. Verplanck, a distinguished alumnus, supported Maxwell and moved a vote of thanks. Faculty supporters intervened and the ceremonies were adjourned in disorder. Both Maxwell and Verplanck were indicted by a grand jury, arraigned before Mayor Clinton, and fined. As a consequence, Maxwell joined Verplanck in his attacks upon Clinton. In 1814 Maxwell was appointed assistant judge-advocate-general of the United States army. In 1817 he was appointed district attorney for the twelfth district (New York County). After the passage of the law of 1818, under which an attorney was named for each county, he was appointed district attorney for New York County, serving from 1821 to 1829. In 1826 he conducted the prosecution of Jacob Barker and others on charges of fraud and conspiracy, following the failure of the Life and Fire Insurance Company. Barker fought the indictment bitterly and Fitz-Greene Halleck, who had been in Barker's employ, attacked Maxwell as "Billingsgate McSwell" in a privately circulated poem. Maxwell was active in the Whig party, largely in the capacity of a party manager, in association with Thurlow Weed. From 1849 to 1853 he held the post of collector of the port of New York. At the age of seventy he gave up his successful law practice and retired from business and politics. His death occurred in 1873.

Achievements

• During the War of 1812, Maxwell was an Assistant Judge Advocate General of the U. S. Army.

Connections

He had married Agnes Stevenson, by whom he had four children.

Father:

William Maxwell

Wife:

Agnes Stevenson

References

• Civil List and Constitutional History of the Colony and State of New York (Classic Reprint)
• History of the Bench and Bar of New York, Vol. 1 (Classic Reprint)