Litchfield Law School

Infobox_nrhp | name = Tapping Reeve House and Law School
nrhp_type = nhl


caption =
location= South Street, Litchfield, Connecticut
lat_degrees = 41
lat_minutes = 44
lat_seconds = 37.86
lat_direction = N
long_degrees = 73
long_minutes = 11
long_seconds = 19.52
long_direction = W
locmapin = Connecticut
area =
built = 1773
architect = Unknown
architecture = No Style Listed
designated = December 21, 1965cite web|url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=666&ResourceType=Building
title=Tapping Reeve House and Law School |accessdate=2007-10-06|work=National Historic Landmark summary listing|publisher=National Park Service]
added = October 15, 1966cite web|url=http://www.nr.nps.gov/|title=National Register Information System|date=2007-01-23|work=National Register of Historic Places|publisher=National Park Service]
governing_body = Private
refnum = 66000879The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut was the first law school in the United States, having been established in 1773 by Tapping Reeve, who would later became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court. By the time the school closed in 1833, over 1,100 students had attended the institution including Aaron Burr, Jr. and John C. Calhoun. The law school, including Reeve's house, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 as the Tapping Reeve House and Law School.citation|title=PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/66000879.pdf National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Tapping Reeve House and Law School] |447 KiB |date=January 16, 1975 |author=Blanche Higgins Schroer and S. Sydney Bradford |publisher=National Park Service and PDFlink| [http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Photos/66000879.pdf Accompanying 5 photos, exterior, from 1965 and 1974.] |1.00 MiB ]

Tapping Reeve

Reeve was born on Long Island, New York in 1744. He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1763, serving for seven years as a tutor at the Grammar School that was connected with the college. There he met the children of the Princeton College's president, Aaron Burr, Sr.: Aaron Burr, Jr. (later Vice President of the United States) and Sally Burr, who were both his students.

Tapping Reeve moved to Connecticut and studied law under Judge Root of Hartford, and was admitted to the bar in 1772. In the same year he married his former student, Sally Burr. They then moved to Litchfield and Reeve started his own law practice. Tapping Reeve built his six-room Litchfield house in 1773 and settled in with his frail wife. In 1780 he added a downstairs wing for Sally, who found it difficult to climb stairs.

Law School

Reeve decided to start a law school, and his first student was none other than his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr. The law school students lived in the homes of town residents and traveled to Reeve's house on South Street to receive their morning lectures in Reeve's downstairs parlor. As the number of students increased, they outgrew the space in the parlor and so in 1784 Reeve built a one-room school building adjacent to his house. [http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/lawschool.html Litchfield Law School, Litchfield Historical Society] ] James Gould became Reeve's associate when Reeve was elected to the Supreme Court in 1798. Reeve withdrew in 1820 and Gould continued until 1833. The school's lectures covered the entire body of the law including real estate, rights of persons, rights of things, contracts, torts, evidence, pleading, crimes, and equity. [ [http://law.jrank.org/pages/8316/Litchfield-Law-School.html Litchfield Law School] ]

Notable students

The list of students who attended Tapping Reeve's law school includes two United States Vice Presidents (Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun), 101 United States congressmen, 28 United States senators, six United States cabinet secretaries, three justices of the United States Supreme Court, 14 State governors and 13 State supreme court chief justices. Litchfield Law School students also held state and local political office and became business leaders. Students went on to found university law schools and become university presidents. [http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/lawschool/students.html Litchfield Law School Students, Litchfield Historical Society] ] Framed pictures of students are still hung up in the school, including George Catlin, Horace Mann (the educator), Aaron Burr, Jr., Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and US Senator & Connecticut Governor Roger Sherman Baldwin. Each name in this list is followed by the year that the student finished, when known.

* John Allen, 1784
* Ezekiel Bacon, 1794
* William J. Bacon, 1823
* Joshua Baker, 1821, Governor of Louisiana
* Ebenezer Baldwin, 1810, "(brother of Simeon Baldwin and uncle of Roger Sherman Baldwin)"
* Henry Baldwin, 1797, U. S. Supreme Court Justice
* Roger Sherman Baldwin, 1812 "(son of Simeon Baldwin and the grandson of Roger Sherman)"
* James Bell, 1824
* Edmund H. Bennett
* Aaron Burr, Jr., 1774, U.S. Vice President, U.S. Senator
* Chester Pierce Butler, 1818
* John Caldwell Calhoun, 1805, U.S. Vice-President, U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, Secretary of War
* George Catlin, 1817
* John M. Clayton, 1817, U. S. Senator and Secretary of State
* John A. Collier, 1805
* Joel Crawford, 1806
* William Crosby Dawson, 1817
* Thomas Day, 1797
* John Stark Edwards, 1796
* Amos Ellmaker, 1806
* Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, 1811
* John Myers Felder, 1806
* Thomas Flournoy Foster, 1816
* Samuel A. Foot, 1797, Connecticut Governor, U.S. Representative and Senator
* John Brown Francis, 1813, U.S. Senator from Rhode Island 1844-45, Governor of Rhode Island 1833-38
* Hopkins Holsey
* Edward King, 1813, son of Rufus King and founder of Cincinnati Law School
* James G. King (1791-1853), businessman and politician who represented ushr|New Jersey|5 from 1849 to 1851. [ [http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=K000203 James Gore King] , "Biographical Directory of the United States Congress". Accessed September 23, 2007.]
* Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar (I), 1817
* Horace Mann, 1822
* Rutger B. Miller, 1824
* Eugenius Aristides Nisbet, 1823
* Elisha Phelps, 1801
* Oliver Leicester Phelps, 1794 "(son of Oliver Phelps, married Roger Sherman's granddaughter Betsey Law Sherman)"
* Horatio Seymour, 1798
* Roger Sherman, Jr., 1792 "(son of Roger Sherman)"
* Roger Minott Sherman, 1794 "(son of Rev. Josiah Sherman, the brother of Roger Sherman)"
* John Burr Skinner, 1820 "(grandson of Roger Sherman)"
* Oliver Skinner, 1800 "(grandson of Roger Sherman)"
* Richard Skinner, 1798
* Roger Sherman Skinner, 1815 "(grandson of Roger Sherman)"
* Perry Smith, 1807, U. S. Senator
* Truman Smith, 1817, U. S. Senator
* Frederick A. Tallmadge, 1811
* Uriah Tracy, 1778
* Stephen Upson, 1805
* Nicholas Ware, 1792
* Lemuel Whitman, 1805
* Elisha Dana Whittlesey, 1813
* Frederick Whittlesey, 1819
* Thomas T. Whittlesey, 1818
* Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 1778
* Levi Woodbury, 1809, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Senator, Secretary of the Treasury and Navy, and Governor of New Hampshire.
* Augustus Romaldus Wright, 1833

References

ources

* [http://www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org/lawschool.html Litchfield Law School, Litchfield Historical Society]
* [http://mssa.library.yale.edu/findaids/stream.php?xmlfile=mssa.ms.0055.xml Baldwin Family Papers]