Harry Innes
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Harry Innes (January 4, 1752 - September 20, 1816) was the first federal judge in Kentucky.
Innes was born in Caroline County, Virginia, the son of the Reverend Robert Innes and Catharine (Richards) Innes. Innes attended Donald Robertson's school and William and Mary College. Innes was married twice, first to Elizabeth Calloway, with whom he had four daughters: Sarah, Katherine, Elizabeth, and Ann. After his first wife's death he married Ann Shield, with whom he had a daughter named Maria, who eventually married John J. Crittenden. The two also raised a daughter from her first marriage.
Innes was admitted to the bar in 1773, and worked briefly as a lawyer in Bedford County, Virginia. He worked in a variety of government jobs from 1776 until 1782, when he was made an assistant judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature for the Kentucky District of Virginia. Innes' work as a judge still allowed him time to practice law, farm, and invest in real estate. He was also a trustee of Transylvania University. Innes resigned as presiding judge in 1784 after he was appointed Attorney General for the western district of Virginia.
Innes was a member of eight of the ten conventions leading to the separation of Kentucky from Virginia, and was a vocal proponent of separation. He also served as president of the first electoral college which chose Kentucky's first Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
On September 26, 1789, President George Washington appointed Innes the first federal judge of the District of Kentucky, then a part of Virginia.
After Kentucky separated from Virginia, Innes was selected to be chief judge of the Kentucky Court of Appeals (then the state's highest court), but declined the appointment. He was the only federal judge in Kentucky until the Judiciary Act of 1801 made what had been the Kentucky District Court a part of the new Sixth Circuit. In 1802 the Judiciary Act of 1801 was repealed and Innes was once again the judge of the District of Kentucky. He remained in office until his death on September 20, 1816.
