| William Sampson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 January 1764 Derry, Ireland |
| Died | 28 December 1836 New York City, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Lawyer |
| Spouse | Grace Clark |
| Children | William, John, and Catherine Anne |
William Sampson (26 January 1764 – 28 December 1836) was an Irish Protestant lawyer known for his defense of religious liberty in Ireland and America.
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Sampson was born in Derry, Ireland to an affluent Protestant family. He studied law in London. In his twenties, he briefly visited an uncle in North Carolina. In 1790 he married Grace Clark; they had two sons, William and John, and a daughter, Catherine Anne.
Admitted to the Irish Bar, Sampson became Junior Counsel to John Philpot Curran, and helped him provide legal defenses for many members of the Society of United Irishmen. Although a member of the Church of Ireland, Sampson appears to have been disturbed by anti-Catholic violence and contributed writings to the Society's newspapers. He was arrested at the time of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, imprisoned, and compelled to leave Ireland for exile in Europe. Shipwrecked at Pwllheli (he spelt it "Pulhelly") in Wales, he made his way to exile in Oporto, where he was again arrested, imprisoned in Lisbon, and then expelled. After living some years in France, and then Hamburg, he fled the approach of Napoleon's armies to England where he was re-arrested. After unsuccessfully petitioning for a return to Ireland, he arrived in New York on 4 July 1806.[1]
In America, Sampson successfully continued his career in the law, eventually sending for his family. He pursued cases such as the defense a Navy Lieutenant prosecuted for dueling.[2] The authorities in Ireland disbarred Sampson, which caused him some bitter amusement, as it didn't affect his work in the United States.
Sampson's most important case in America was in 1813 and is referred to as "The Catholic Question in America".[3] Police investigating the misdemeanor of receiving stolen goods questioned the suspects' priest, the Reverend Mr. Kohlman; he declined to given any information that he had heard in confession. The priest was called to testify at the trial trial in the Court of General Sessions in the City of New-York; he again declined. The issue whether to compel the testimony was fully briefed and carefully argued on both sides, with a detailed examination of the common law; in the end, the confessional privilege was accepted for the first time in a court of the United States.
He died in 1836 and was buried in the Riker Family graveyard on Long Island [4] in what is now East Elmhurst, Queens, New York [5]. He was later reinterred in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, where he is now buried in the same plot as Matilda Witherington Tone and William Theobald Wolfe Tone, the wife and son of the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, and his daughter Catherine, the wife of William Theobald Wolfe Tone [6].