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History of the Harvard Law School and of Early Legal Conditions in America
History of the Harvard Law School and of Early Legal Conditions in America Author:Charles Warren General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1908 Original Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Subjects: Lawyers Law Education / Higher Law / General Law / Legal Education Law / Legal History Law / Legal Profession Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and t... more »here may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER I. New England Law And Lawyers In The I7TH Century. MASSACHUSETTS. Sixty-five men landed at Plymouth in 1620, no one of whom was a lawyer. Among the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1628- 1634, there was not an actual practising lawyer, although John Winthrop, its Governor, and Emmanuel Downing, the father of George Downing whose name stands number two on the roll of the first class of Harvard graduates, (Harv. 1642.), had been admitted to the Inner Temple in London. (i) Richard Bellingham, Simon Bradstreet, Herbert Pelham, John Humphreys, and Thomas Dudley and a few others had doubtless been students of law or university men but they were not engaged in the practise of the profession. At the beginning of this period of "Law without lawyers" in the Plymouth Colony, the whole community acted as the court. Thus in the first recorded offence against the law, in March 1621, "John Billington is convented, before the whole company for the contempt of the captain's lawful commands with opprobrious speeches; for which he is adjudged to have his neck and heels tied together." The second offence was, as Governor Bradford informs us, the first duel fought in New England upon a challenge at single combat with sword and dagger between Edward Doty and Edward Lester, servants of Mr. Hopkins. "They are adjudged by the whole company to have their head and feet tied together and so to lie for twenty-four hours without meat or drin...« less