NorthShore Slavery

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Essex County Massachusetts Freedom Case Participants 1760 - 1783

Theophilus Parsons (1750-1813)

Byfield (Newbury)

Biography: THEOPHILUS PARSONS (1750-1813). Harvard 1769. Studied law with Theophilus Bradbury and Edmund Trowbridge, qq.v. Admitted attorney, Cumberland Inferior Court, July 1774; attorney, SCJ, June 1776; barrister, ca. 1784. Practiced in Essex Co. Leading lawyer of the post-Revolutionary generation, having many later distinguished students, including JQA. Interested in science as well, producing essays on astronomy and geometry. Author of the Essex Result, report of the Essex Convention in opposition to the proposed Massachusetts Constitution of 1778. A leader in the Essex Junto at the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1779. Delegate to the Massachusetts Ratification Convention, 178 8. Elected to the House, 1779, 1787-1791, 1805. Appointed Chief Justice of Massachusetts, 1806, serving until his death. DAB.
Adams, John, L. Kinvin Wroth, and Hiller B. Zobel. Legal Papers of John Adams. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965.

Comments:

Pomp Somerset vs. Richard Greenleaf (1776) Attorney for Plaintiff
Timon vs. Peter Osgood (1777) Attorney for Plaintiff
Timon vs. Peter Osgood (1777) Witness on Indenture
Kimball vs. Kimball (1779) Attorney for Plaintiff
Adventurer vs. Vanderhoaf (1782) Attorney for Plaintiff
Cloe Hale vs. Nathaniel Hale (1782) Attorney for Plaintiff

Sources