Background

Tapping Reeve, the son of Abner Reeve, a Presbyterian minister, was born on October 1, 1744 at Brookhaven, Long Island.

Education

Graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1763, he spent the next seven years of his life in teaching, finally (1769 - 70) as a tutor in the college itself. In 1771 he moved to Connecticut and took up the study of law in the office of Judge Root at Hartford.

Career

Admitted to the bar in the following year, he moved to Litchfield and began at once the practice of his profession. Though a newcomer in a locality noted for the number and excellence of its lawyers, Reeve in a short time, and apparently without difficulty, won for himself a place of prominence among them.

In December 1776 the Connecticut Assembly appointed him a member of a committee formed for the purpose of going through the state and arousing an interest in the Revolution. He accepted an officer's commission, and actually set out to join the Continental Army, but returned home on hearing of Washington's victories in the Jersey campaign of 1776-77.

He was state's attorney for 1788. He became a member of the legislature and served once on the Council. Like most of his contemporaries he was intensely interested in politics. On the development of parties following the adoption of the Constitution he aligned himself with the Federalists, of which group he was an ardent, not to say violent, partisan and local leader. He was a frequent contributor of political articles to the Litchfield Monitor, a Federalist newspaper published by Thomas Collier. His usual nom de plume was "Phocion" or "Asdrubal, " but a number of communications signed "Marcellus" are said likewise to have been his. Engendered in the heat of party conflict, these articles are characterized by a straightforwardness of expression which at times savors of lack of restraint.

As a result of one of them, in the Monitor for December 2, 1801, he was indicted by a federal grand jury (April 1806) for having libeled President Jefferson, Collier also being indicted for having published the article. The indictment was later dismissed, according to tradition at the request of Jefferson himself. Reeve's most notable claim to distinction was the founding of the Litchfield Law School, the first - if we except the "school, " or department, of law at the College of William and Mary, of which George Wythe was the professor - and for a long time quite the most important school of its kind in the country.

This school, possibly the result of some survival of the teaching instinct which had kept Reeve at Princeton after his graduation, but more probably an expedient devised to supplement the income derived from his law practice which had been curtailed during the Revolutionary War, was formally opened in 1784. For some time before that date Reeve had been giving in his office regular instruction in law in a methodical way, seemingly along much the same lines as those later followed in the school. For fourteen years, during which time some two hundred students attended the school, Reeve alone was the teacher.

In 1798 his appointment as a judge of the superior court made it necessary for him to choose someone to help him in teaching.

Accordingly he selected as an associate a former pupil and a recent graduate of the school, James Gould, who, until his own appointment to the bench in 1816, devoted practically his whole time to the work of the school.

To Gould, a far abler administrator and executive than Reeve, unquestionably belongs the major share of the credit for developing an institution that in the early years of the nineteenth century brought to Litchfield hundreds of young men from almost every state in the Union, and numbered among its graduates some of the most prominent men in the public life of the next generation.

For some sixteen years he was a judge of the superior court. In 1814 he was made chief justice of the supreme court of errors. Within a year he had reached the age of seventy years, the compulsory age of retirement from the bench; actually he retired in 1816.

This, together with the fact that the arrangement which he had made with Gould resulted in his receiving only a small share in the proceeds of the law school, led him to turn to the publishing of legal works to augment his income. His principal law book was, The Law of Baron and Femme; of Parent and Child; of Guardian and Ward; of Master and Servant; and of the Powers of Courts of Chancery.

With an Essay on the Terms Heir, Heirs, and Heirs of the Body (1816), of which there were four editions. He was the author also of, A Treatise on the Law of Descents in the Several United States of America (1825).

He died at Litchfield.

Achievements

• In 1784 he opened the Litchfield Law School, one of the earliest law schools in the United States, in Litchfield, Connecticut. His home, now known as Tapping Reeve House and Law School, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Law of Baron and Femme, of Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward, Master and Servant, and of the Powers of Courts of Chancery: With an Essay on the ... and Heirs of the Body (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Law of Baron and Femme, of Parent and Ch...)

  • The Law Of Baron And Femme, Of Parent And Child, Guardian And Ward, Master And Servant, And Of The Powers Of The Courts Of Chancery; With An Essay On The Terms Heir, Heirs, Heirs Of The Body

    (Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)

  • The Law of Baron and Femme: Of Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward, Master and Servant, and of the Powers of the Courts of Chancery, With an Essay On the Terms Heir, Heirs, Heirs of the Body

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • A Treatise on the Law of Descents, in the Several United States of America

    (This is a reproduction of a classic text optimised for ki...)

  • The law of baron and femme

    (The law of baron and femme. Of parent and child, guardian...)

Religion

In addition to being very active in political and civic affairs, Reeve was a leading figure in the religious life of his community, a matter of far more comparative importance and prestige then than now. He read a printed sermon by Lyman Beecher and brought him to Litchfield. Beecher found Reeve a kindred spirit, "an eminently pious man". Seemingly Reeve's piety was of a mildly militant sort. He was one of thirty-six to sign a temperance pledge in 1789, during a burst of local enthusiasm to curb the drink evil. He was agent in Litchfield for the Connecticut Bible Society, in which capacity he was praised by Beecher for his zeal and success. In 1812 a number of leading men from all parts of the state held a meeting in New Haven to found a society for the suppression of vice and the promotion of good morals; Reeve was appointed chairman of the committee of twenty-six to whom was entrusted the task of organizing the society.

Personality

All accounts agree in ascribing to Reeve an unusually attractive personality. Of his appearance, clearly when he was well along in years, Beecher's Autobiography says: "He had a pair of soft dark eyes of rare beauty, a beaming expression of intelligence and benevolence, while his soft gray hair fell in silver tresses to his shoulders. His figure was large and portly, and his manners gentle and dignified. His voice was singular, having failed for some unknown cause, so that he always spoke in a whisper, and yet so distinctly that a hundred students at once could take notes as he delivered his law lectures. "

This characteristic weakness of voice was made a matter of ridicule by Reeve's political enemies. Thus the Litchfield Witness in reporting a caucus at which Reeve spoke says, "It is certain that Judge Reeve opened his mouth and some say that they heard him speak. "

Connections

Reeve was twice married. His first wife, a former pupil of his early teaching days, was Sally Burr, daughter of President Burr of Princeton, and sister of Aaron Burr, who was one of Reeve's first law students. The result of this union was a son, Aaron Burr Reeve, who died in 1809 leaving an only son, Tapping Burr Reeve, who died unmarried in 1829. There were no children by the second marriage (1799), to his housekeeper, "a most respectable woman".

Father:

Abner Reeve

Presbyterian minister

Mother:

Deborah Tapping

Spouse:

Sally Burr

Spouse:

Elizabeth "Betsy" Thompson

Son:

Aaron Burr Reeve

References

• Tapping Reeve and the Litchfield Law School