Background
Jeremiah was born on November 29, 1759 in Peterborough in the Province of New Hampshire, United States. His parents were William Smith, an emigrant from the North of Ireland, and Elizabeth (Morison) Smith. His parents had ten children.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Decisions-Superior-Hampshire-Selected-Manuscript/dp/1361729813?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1361729813
jurist lawyer politician statesman
Jeremiah was born on November 29, 1759 in Peterborough in the Province of New Hampshire, United States. His parents were William Smith, an emigrant from the North of Ireland, and Elizabeth (Morison) Smith. His parents had ten children.
His early education was scanty. After further study under competent preceptors he entered Harvard College in 1777 and remained two years, his studies interrupted by a tour of duty with the New Hampshire contingent sent to oppose Burgoyne's invasion.
Because of the unsatisfactory conditions at Harvard, due to the Revolution, he completed his course at Queen's College (Rutgers College), graduating in 1780.
During his term of service in Burgoyne's invasion he was wounded at Bennington. After college he served as a teacher in various localities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
In 1786 he was admitted to the bar at Amherst, in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. He spent ten years at Peterborough, during which period he entered political life through the familiar school of town government. In 1790 he was elected to the Second Congress and a year later served in the New Hampshire constitutional convention which did so much to establish the governmental system of the state.
He was not particularly prominent member of Congress until his resignation, July 26, 1797. He gave up his congressional career to accept appointment as United States attorney for the New Hampshire district, and bought a home at Exeter. In 1800 he became judge of probate for Rockingham County, and his legal knowledge enabled him to improve and clarify the unsatisfactory administration of this branch of New Hampshire law.
On February 20, 1801, on the recommendation of John Marshall, he was appointed circuit judge by President Adams, but his tenure of office was soon terminated by the repeal of the act establishing these courts by the Jeffersonian majority in Congress.
On May 17, 1802, he became chief justice of New Hampshire and for the next seven years rode on circuit, worked to raise the standards of bench and bar in what was, in many respects, a pioneer community. In 1809 he resigned the chief justiceship to serve a single term as governor, but without satisfaction either to the Federalist party, the state at large, or himself, his talents being judicial rather than political. He then resumed private practice but again served as chief justice from 1813 to 1816 during a stormy period when the courts were undergoing a reorganization, of dubious constitutionality, at the hands of the Federalist majority. With the defeat of the Federalists he returned to private life.
In 1820 he retired from practice. In his declining years Smith showed no diminution of mental vigor, and he gave time and energy to local enterprises and causes, rendering valuable service to Phillips Exeter Academy, and attracting interest and attention as one of the last surviving Elder Statesmen of the Washington era. In 1842 he sold his Exeter estate, in order to lighten the responsibilities of his executors and dependents, and moved to Dover, where his death occurred a few months later.
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
Smith was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.
From his Scotch-Irish ancestry Jeremiah derived habits of thrift, capacity for hard work, caustic wit, and a tendency to hardness and austerity. He was an industrious man.
Quotes from others about the person
Jeremiah Mason testified that Smith had done "much to remedy the most intolerable evil of a bad administration of justice" resulting from vague and uncertain judicial decisions, "by establishing and enforcing a more orderly practice, and by strenuous endeavors to conform all judicial decisions to known rules and principles of law"; and the competent historian of the New Hampshire bar declares that "Judge Smith did more, perhaps, for the improvement of the jurisprudence of the State than any other man".
On March 8, 1797 he married Eliza Ross of Maryland. His wife and five children died. On September 20, 1831, he married, second, Elizabeth Hale of Dover, New Hampshire, and a son, Jeremiah, was born on July 14, 1837.