Joshua Atherton was born on June 20, 1737 in Harvard, Massachussets, United States. He was the second son of Peter and Experience (Wright) Atherton. Peter practiced the lucrative trade of blacksmithing and served as a local magistrate; he also became a colonel in the Massachusetts colonial militia.
Educated in the common schools and under the tuition of a clergyman, at the age of twenty-one he entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1762.
He studied law under James Putnam of Worcester, the King's attorney-general for the province.
Atherton practised his profession in the towns of Litchfield and Merriman from 1765 until 1773, when having been appointed register of probate for the County of Hillsborough, he removed to its shire town, Amherst, which was his home during the rest of his life. His rise at the bar of the province, which now seemed assured, was soon halted by the outbreak of the American Revolution.
Hillsborough County early became a stronghold of the Sons of Liberty, but, apparently because of his natural conservatism and strong belief that the liberties of the colonies would be best ensured by their remaining subject to Great Britain, Atherton firmly refused to join them. Becoming at length a "suspect, " he was arrested on Aug. 21, 1777, as a "disaffected person" whose presence at large would be dangerous to the liberties of the country, and he was confined in jail until June 5, 1778.
In January 1779, probably convinced by the surrender of Burgoyne and the American alliance with France that it was useless longer to oppose the independence of the United States, he took the oath of allegiance to the State of New Hampshire and was admitted to practise in its courts. After the establishment of peace, the marked personality, legal ability, and strong character of Atherton soon sufficed to dispel the prejudice created by his record as a Tory.
His law practise rapidly grew, and he was repeatedly elected to important public positions. He was a member of the convention which drafted the first permanent constitution of New Hampshire, that of 1784, and also of the convention of 1792, the first summoned to revise that organic law. In each of these bodies he took a leading part and had large influence in shaping both the substance and form of the present constitution of the state.
In 1788 he was the leader of the opposition in the state convention called to act upon the adoption of the proposed Federal Constitution. The most memorable event in its debates was his strong and impassioned argument against ratification of the proposed constitution without its prior amendment prohibiting the slave trade, allowed by Article 1, section 9, till 1808. His opposition contributed to delay the final action of the convention for three months, until on June 21, 1788, ratification was carried by a narrow margin.
In 1792 and again in 1793 Atherton was a member of the state Senate, then a body of only twelve, in which he sought, though unsuccessfully, to remedy existing defects in the state law by investing the superior court of judicature with the powers and jurisdiction of a court of equity. The high position which Atherton now had won at the bar led to his appointment by Gov. Josiah Bartlett on June 11, 1793 to the office of attorney-general of the state.
Four years later, when only sixty years of age, he began to suffer from an organic affection of the heart which gradually so impaired his powers that he was forced to resign this office in 1801 and also to withdraw from the private practise of his profession.
He passed the remainder of his life with his family and books, gracefully dispensing, after the manner of an aristocratic country gentleman, his habitual hospitality to members of the bench and clergy and to distinguished visitors.
He had a remarkable personality and very strong character.
In 1765 he was married to Abigail Goss of Bolton, Massachussets; they had three daughters.
