Litchfield Law School

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The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut was the first law school in the United States, established in 1773 by Tapping Reeve, who would later became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

[edit] Tapping Reeve

Reeve was born on Long Island, New York in 1744. He graduated from the College of New Jersey 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 United States Vice President) 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 that he married a former student, Sally Burr. He then they moved to Litchfield and Tapping 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. 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 travelled to Reeve's house on south street to receive their morning lectures in Reeve's downstairs parlor. Framed pictures of the student are still hung up in school, including, George Catlin, Horace Mann (the famous educator), Aaron Burr, Jr., Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and US Senator & Connecticut Governor Roger Sherman Baldwin.

[edit] Student list

The distinguished list students includes two (2) United States Vice Presidents (Aaron Burr and John C. Calhoun), one hundred and one (101) United States congressmen, twenty-eight (28) United States senators, six (6) United States cabinet secretaries, three (3) justices of the United States Supreme Court, fourteen (14) State governors and thirteen (13) State supreme court chief justices.

Many more held state and local political office, while a large number became leaders of the nation's emerging mercantile, industrial, and banking establishments. More than a dozen (12) students of the Litchfield Law School went on and founded university law schools and even more became university presidents.

Baldwin, Birdsey, 1806
Baldwin, Charles, 1801
Baldwin, Charles, 1810
Baldwin, Ebenezer, 1810 (brother of Simeon Baldwin and uncle of Roger Sherman Baldwin)
Baldwin, Henry, 1797
Baldwin, Roger Sherman, 1812 (son of Simeon Baldwin and the grandson of Roger Sherman)
Baldwin, Samuel Sacket, 1800
Dawson, William Crosby, c. 1817
Dyer, Eliphalet, 1790
Dyer, Thomas, 1799
Gould, George, 1827
Gould, James , 1795
Gould, James Reeve, 1824
Gould, William Tracy, 1818
Kingsbury, John, 1788
Kingsbury, John, 1809
Kingsbury, Sanford, 1801
Lewis, Daniel Wadsworth, 1791
Lewis, John Lawson, 1825
Lewis, Robert H., 1821
Lewis, William, 1817
Livingston, Carrol, 1827
Livingston, Henry Walter, 1820
Livingston, James Kane, 1818
Livingston, John R., 1823
Livingston, Robert Cambridge, 1829
Livingston, Walter C., 1820
Livingston, William, 1817
Maxwell, Joseph, 1817
Maxwell, Robert, 1817
Phelps, Charles B., 1806
Phelps, Edward Arah, 1828
Phelps, Elisha, 1801
Phelps, Jedediah, 1810
Phelps, Oliver Leicester, 1794 (son of Oliver Phelps, married Roger Sherman's granddaughter Betsey Law Sherman)
Phelps, Samuel Shethar, 1811
Rogers, Archibald Gracie, 1823
Rogers, Artemas, 1811
Rogers, Charles William, 1829
Rogers, Edward, 1810
Rogers, Henry, 1823
Rogers, Henry Augustus, 1821
Rogers, Henry Bromfield, 1823
Rogers, Henry William, 1810
Rogers, John, 1813
Rogers, Moulton Cropper, 1807
Rogers, William M. Horsey, 1829
Sherman, Elkanah C., 1825
Sherman, Roger, Jr., 1792 (son of Roger Sherman)
Sherman, Roger Minott, 1794 (son of Rev. Josiah Sherman, the brother of Roger Sherman)
Skinner, John Burr, 1820 (grandson of Roger Sherman)
Skinner, Oliver, 1800 (grandson of Roger Sherman)
Skinner, Richard, 1798
Skinner, Roger Sherman, 1815 (grandson of Roger Sherman)
Staples, Seth Perkins, 1798
Taylor, Edwin Mygatt, 1832
Taylor, Hubbard, 1810
Taylor, James Simon, 1818
Taylor, John Gilman, 1803
Taylor, William Jesse, 1828
Tracy, George H., 1830
Tracy, Uriah, 1778
White, John Phillips, 1799
White, Thomas, 1816
White, William, 1818
Whittlesey, Elisha Dana, 1813
Whittlesey, Frederick, 1819
Whittlesey, Roger, 1788
Whittlesey, Thomas Tucker, 1818