Samuel Maxwell Harrington

Background

Samuel Harrington was born on February 5, 1803, in Dover, Delaware, United States of English and German ancestry.

Education

After a course in Washington College, Maryland, from which Samuel graduated in 1823 with first honors, he studied law in the office of Henry M. Ridgely and then with Martin W. Bates, being admitted to the bar in October 1826.

Career

With poor health, embarrassed circumstances, and the responsibility of the family after his father’s death, Samuel Harrington nevertheless rose rapidly in his profession and in 1828 was appointed secretary of state by Governor Polk. Two years later, on October 16, 1830, he was appointed chief justice of the supreme court. During the following year, however, the constitutional convention changed the judicial system by setting up a superior court in lieu of the supreme court and the court of common pleas. On this superior court Harrington was appointed associate justice, January 18, 1832, which position he held for twenty-three years, when, upon the death of James Booth, Jr. , he was made chief justice, April 3, 1855. On May 4, 1857, he was made chancellor. A later estimate of his services came when the Delaware Bar Association, in 1924, selected him as the one who had been preeminent in judicial service to the state.

Harrington was one of the prime movers in the development of the Delaware Railroad, the beginning of a plan for a peninsular or Eastern Shore railroad, which would provide transportation direct from Norfolk to Philadelphia. Clayton conceived the plan, but Harrington was made president when the company was organized in May 1852. The railroad became associated in the minds of many with monopoly and the cause of the Whig party in Delaware, and Harrington, who belonged to that party, labored to save his railroad from the shoals of party prejudice and the rivalry of other companies. The road was leased to the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore for construction, in 1855, completed in 1860, and finally taken over by that company.

Harrington died at the close of the Civil War, while on business in Philadelphia. For two years before his death he had been almost prostrated by a stroke of paralysis but would not succumb to it.

Achievements

• Samuel Harrington was known as the first law reporter appointed in Delaware, and compiled five volumes of reports. He served also as chairman of the commission which revised the statute law of Delaware and prepared the code adopted by the legislature in special session in 1852.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Superior Court and Court of Errors and Appeals of the State of Delaware, Vol. 2: From the Organization of ... to Some of the Earlier Cases; Published at t

    (Excerpt from Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the ...)

Politics

Harrington was a member of the Whig party.

Personality

Harrington’s judicial attainments were of unusual calibre. His mind was keen and logical; his learning extensive.

Quotes from others about the person

• “His cases were announced with clearness of reasoning, aptness of illustration, and depth of research. Though based on the principles of the common law, they were qualified by a cautious and judicious recognition of doctrines of more recent origin. ” - John M. Clayton

Connections

In 1836, Harrington married Mary (Lofland) Harrington.

Spouse:

Mary (Lofland) Harrington

Daughter:

Lydia Burton Harrington

Son:

Purnell Frederick Harrington

Son:

Samuel Milby Harrington

References

• Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living: Including President Pierce and His Cabinet; with Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Their Lives and Actions Volume 3