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Essex County Massachusetts Freedom Case Participants 1760 - 1783
Peter Oliver Esq. (1713-1791)
Boston
Biography: PETER OLIVER ( 1713-179 1). Harvard 1730. Had no formal legal training. Early Plymouth Co. industrialist, with poetic talent. Leading loyalist. Related to the Hutchinsons by marriage. Appointed Justice of the Peace, 1744 Judge, Plymouth Inferior Court, 1747-1756. Justice, Superior Court, 1756-1772; Chief Justice, 1772-1775. Represented Middleboro in the House, 1749, 1751, and sat on the Council, 1759-1766, upholding the crown position. Impeached as Chief Justice by the House, 1774 for refusmg to reject the royal salary grant. Jurors refused to serve under
him thereafter. Appointed a Mandamus Councilor, 1774, and served on that body, taking refuge in Boston. Sailed to Halifax, 1776, and then to London. Proscribed, 1778. In retirement wrote Origin and Progress of the Anumcan Rebellion, a lengthy and very partisan account of the political
events which he had witnessed (ed. Douglass Adair and John A. Schutz
an Marino, Calif., 1963). 8 Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates 737-763:
Adams, John, L. Kinvin Wroth, and Hiller B. Zobel. Legal Papers of John Adams. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1965.
Comments:
Jenny Slew vs. John Whipple, Jr. (1766) Associate JudgeLewis vs. Dodge (1769) Associate Judge
Casar vs. Samuel Taylor (1772) Associate Judge
Casar vs. Samuel Taylor (1772) Chief Justice