Samuel Hoar
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Samuel Hoar (May 18, 1778 - November 2, 1856) was a United States lawyer and politician. A member of a prominent political family in Massachusetts, he was one of the prominent 19th century lawyers of that state.
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[edit] Early life
Hoar was a native of Lincoln and Concord, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1802. In the fall of 1813, he married Sarah Sherman ((1785-1862) of New Haven, Connecticut; she was the daughter of signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Roger Sherman and Sherman's second wife Rebecca Minot Prescott.
[edit] Political and legal career
Hoar served two terms in the Massachusetts State Senate and was a member of the United States House of Representatives in 1835 - 1836.
Hoar was an expert in maritime law. In 1844, he was chosen by the Legislature and the Governor of Massachusetts, George Briggs to represent Massachusetts in a legal conflict with South Carolina. The intent was to test the constitutionality of the latter state's prohibition of free African-Americans from entering the state. Sourth Carolina agents would arrest free African American seamen from Massachusetts working on ships docked at South Carolina sea ports and sell the African-Americans into slavery unless the arrestees or the ship captain paid fines for the criminal entry into the state. On his arrival in Charleston, December 1844, locals mobbed Hoar as a Yankee meddler and warned him to leave town. The South Carolina legislature barred him from Charleston, and effectively from appearing before that state's courts. When news of this incident reached Massachusetts it aroused much ire, and contributed to sentiment against slavery and in favor of abolitionism.[1][2]
Hoar was elected to the Massachusetts Governor's Council in 1845, and elected a to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1850. He chaired a committee formed to call for a meeting at the American House in Boston (July 7, 1854) to discuss the formation of a new party and to call a state convention. Anger over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the issue of slavery in Federal territories were motivating factors leading to the subsequent convention (in Worcester, September 7, 1854), and the formation of the Massachusetts Republican Party out of the Massachusetts Free Soil Party.[3] Hoar was a cofounder of the first Concord Academy, which had a 41-year existence (1822-1863),[4]
[edit] Hoar family
Samuel Hoar had five surviving children (of six offspring); several led influential or prominent lives.
- Elizabeth Sherman Hoar (July 14, 1814-April 7, 1878) was engaged to Charles Chauncy Emerson (1808-1836), youngest brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson and young law partner of Samuel Hoar; Charles died of tuberculosis before they could marry, and she never married. She was an intimate of the Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau families.[5] R.W. Emerson invited Elizabeth into Transcendentalist community, and she aided in producing their journal, the Dial.[6][7]
- Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar (1816-1895) (Harvard class of 1835) was Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and US Attorney General for President Ulysses Grant; later nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Grant, but the nomination was not approved by the Senate; he married Caroline Brooks of Concord.
- Sarah Hoar (1817-1907) married Robert Boyd Storer, a Boston, Massachusetts importer.[8]
- Samuel Johnson Hoar (February 4, 1820 - Jan 10, 1821) died in infancy.[9][10]
- Edward Sherman Hoar (1823-1892), (Harvard class of 1844) married childhood neighbor Elizabeth Hallet Prichard of Concord,[11] and was an intimate of Henry David Thoreau (the Thoreau family lived across Main street from the Hoars, in several different houses over the years). Edward with H.D. Thoreau accidentally allowed a cooking fire to get out of control, and caused about three hundred acres of forest to burn on April 30, 1844, along the Sudbury River in the Fairhaven Bay section of Concord. Edward accompanied Thoreau on some of Thoreau's hiking and canoeing excursions.[12][13][14][15]
- George Frisbie Hoar (1826-1904) (Harvard class of 1845) moved to Worcester, Massachusetts as a young adult, and became a prominent and long-serving U.S. Senator representing Massachusetts.
[edit] Other Hoar family members named Samuel Hoar
The Hoar family, a prominent political family in Massachusetts history, has had number of individuals named Samuel Hoar since the 1700s:
- His father, Samuel Hoar (1743-1832), was a lieutenant of the Lincoln, Massachusetts company at the Concord batle on April 19, 1775. For many years a member of the Massachusetts General Court as a representative and senator, and a member in the 1820 - 1821 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention.
- Son, Samuel Johnson Hoar (February 4, 1820 - Jan 10, 1821) died in infancy.
- Samuel Hoar (1845-1904), son of Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, was editor of the American Law Review from 1873 to 1879. In 1887 he became general counsel for the Boston and Albany Railroad Company.
- His son, Samuel Hoar (1887-1952), was partner in a prominent Boston law firm, called during his lifetime Goodwin, Procter and Hoar. The firm was founded in 1914, and Hoar's name was added in 1917 when Hoar joined the firm.[16] In the 1940s he donated a several parcels of land to the Federal Government, which became the founding kernal of the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge on the Concord and Sudbury rivers in Massachusetts. He co-founded a second and still operating Concord Academy in 1922 in Concord, Massachusetts.[citation needed]
- His son, Samual Hoar (1927 - 2004), of Essex, Massachusetts also was a senior partner in the firm formerly known as Goodwin, Procter and Hoar.[16][17] As board member of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), he was a leading member of the litigation team that compelled the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to comply with federal environmental law, and build appropriate facilities to properly treat sewage discharged into Boston harbor, a legal battle that was most intense from 1983 into the 1990s.[18]
- His son, Samuel Hoar (b. 1955) is a lawyer practicing in Burlington, Vermont. He became president of the Vermont Bar Association in 2006.[19]
- His son, Samual Hoar (1927 - 2004), of Essex, Massachusetts also was a senior partner in the firm formerly known as Goodwin, Procter and Hoar.[16][17] As board member of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF), he was a leading member of the litigation team that compelled the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to comply with federal environmental law, and build appropriate facilities to properly treat sewage discharged into Boston harbor, a legal battle that was most intense from 1983 into the 1990s.[18]
- His son, Samuel Hoar (1887-1952), was partner in a prominent Boston law firm, called during his lifetime Goodwin, Procter and Hoar. The firm was founded in 1914, and Hoar's name was added in 1917 when Hoar joined the firm.[16] In the 1940s he donated a several parcels of land to the Federal Government, which became the founding kernal of the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge on the Concord and Sudbury rivers in Massachusetts. He co-founded a second and still operating Concord Academy in 1922 in Concord, Massachusetts.[citation needed]
- Samuel Hoar (1845-1904), son of Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, was editor of the American Law Review from 1873 to 1879. In 1887 he became general counsel for the Boston and Albany Railroad Company.
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ^ Governors of Massachusetts: George Nixon Briggs (1796-1861): Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1844-1851 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved January 20, 2007.
- ^ HOAR, Samuel, (1778 - 1856) Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: 1774 - Present. Retrieved January 20, 2004.
- ^ Wilson, Leslie Perrin. Papers of the Legendary Hoar Family Concord Magazine, August/September 1999; retreived December 1, 2006.
- ^ This first Concord Academy is unrelated to a second Concord Academy, which was co-founded by his grandson Samuel Hoar (1887-1952) in 1922. The cofounders of the first Concord Academy were these leading citizens of Concord: Samuel Hoar (1778-1856), Josiah G. Davis (1773-1847), William Whiting (1788-1847), Nathan Brooks (1788-1862) and Abiel Heywood (1759-1839).
- ^ Emerson in His Family: Charles Chauncy Emerson, Concord Free Public Library, Concord, Massachusetts. Retrieved December 20, 2006.
- ^ Robbins, Paula. The Hoar Family Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography. Unitarian Universalist Association. Retrieved January 20, 2007.
- ^ Robbins, Paula The Hoar Family Unitarian Universalist Historical Society. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
- ^ Edson, Roz. [1] Hoar Genology (Rootsweb)
- ^ Hoar Family Papers, 1738-1958 (Bulk 1815-1935) The Special Collections (Finding Aid). Concord Free Public Library. Retrieved January 30, 2007.
- ^ Edson, Roz. [2] Hoar Genology (Rootsweb)
- ^ Dall, Caroline Healey; ed by Deese, Helen R. Carol Healy Dall speaks in Concord, 1859 (See footnote 161 at bottom of page.) Daughter of Boston: The Extraordinary Diary of a Nineteenth-century Woman Beacon Press, Boston. 2004. ISBN 978-080705034-7
- ^ Henry David Thoreau; (edited by Robert Sattelmeyer, Mark R. Patterson, and William Rossi) Journal 3: 1848-1851 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. 75-78 and Annotation 75.16-78.19.
- ^ Harding, Walter. The Days of Henry Thoreau, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 159-162.
- ^ The Writings of Henry David Thoreau: frequently asked questions. (Did Thoreau really start a major forest fire accidentally, and how old was he at that time?) The Thoreau Edition, Davidson Library at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Retreived January 20, ,2007.
- ^ Felton, R. Todd. An Early Naturalist Burns Down a Forest Concord Magazine, Autumn 2006. Excerpt from Felton: A Journey Into the Transcendentalists' New England. (Roaring Forties Press, 2006)
- ^ a b Memorial service held for former Goodwin Procter partner Boston Business Journal. September 27, 2004. Retrieved January 14, 2007.
- ^ In memorium. Obituary. Harvard Law School. Retrieved January 20, 2007.
- ^ Early History of CLF's Fight to Cleanup Boston Harbor 1983-1986 Conservation Law Foundation. Retireved January 20, 2007.
- ^ Paolini, Bob. An Interview with VBA President Sam Hoar Vermont Bar Association. Retrieved January 14, 2007.]
[edit] References
- Robbins, Paula Ivaska. The Royal Family of Concord : Samuel, Elizabeth, and Rockwood Hoar and their friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson ISBN 140109970X. Pub. Xlibris. Philadelphia PA, 2003.
- Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress "HOAR, Samuel, (1778 - 1856)"
- The Hoar Family on Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography
[edit] External links
- HOAR FAMILY PAPERS, 1738-1958 (BULK 1815-1935), and HOAR FAMILY PAPERS, 1774-1940 (BULK 1860-1918) at the Concord Free Public Library, Concord, Massachusetts
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1778 births | 1856 deaths | Baldwin, Evarts, Hoar & Sherman family | Massachusetts State Senators | Members of the Massachusetts House of Representatives | Members of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts