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James Kent (1763–1847)

Description

James Kent, jurist and legal scholar, was born on 31 July 1763 in Fredericksburg, New York. After graduating from Yale College in 1781, he studied law and gained admittance to the bar. Kent then opened a practice in Poughkeepsie, the start of a distinguished legal and political career that included service as a New York assemblyman, master in chancery, recorder of New York City, justice of the New York Supreme Court of Judicature, chancellor of New York, and member of the 1821 New York State Constitutional Convention.

Citations

"James Kent." Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale In Context: U.S. History, link.gale.com/apps/doc/BT2310009871/UHIC?u=viva_uva&sid=bookmark-UHIC&xid=3dca8dab. Accessed 13 Oct. 2023.

James W. Ely Jr., "Kent, James," in Kermit L. Hall, ed., The Oxford Companion to American Law (Oxford University Press, 2004).

Beverly W. Brannan, James Kent Papers: A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress Manuscript Division, 2007).

James Kent at Historical Society of the New York Courts.

James Kent at Find a Grave.

Chancellor James Kent at FamilySearch.