Theodore Sedgwick

Theodore Sedgwick (May 9, 1746 – January 24, 1813) was an American attorney, politician and jurist, who served in elected state government and as a Delegate to the Continental Congress, a U.S. Representative, and a United States Senator from Massachusetts. He served as the fourth Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1802 and served there the rest of his life.

Early life and education

Born in West Hartford, Connecticut, Sedgwick was the son of Benjaman Sedgwick (1716-1755). His paternal immigrant ancestor Major General Robert Sedgwick arrived in 1636 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, as part of the Great Migration.

Sedgwick attended Yale College, where he studied theology and law. He did not graduate, but went on to study law ("read law") under the attorney Mark Hopkins of Great Barrington (He was the grandfather of the Mark Hopkins who later became president of Williams College.)

Early career

Sedgwick was admitted to the bar in 1766 and commenced practice in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He moved to Sheffield. During the American Revolutionary War, he served in the Continental Army as a major, and took part in the expedition to Canada and the Battle of White Plains in 1776.

Theodore Sedgwick (writer)

Theodore Sedgwick III (1811–59) was an American law writer.

He was born at Albany, New York and graduated from Columbia College in 1829. In 1858, he became United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He was the son of Theodore Sedgwick II (1780–1839) and Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick (1788–1867), a writer, and grandson of Theodore Sedgwick (1746–1813). His grandfather was a Delegate to the Continental Congress, a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, the fifth Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and a justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

He graduated at Columbia college, New York, in 1829, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1833. The next 15 months he passed in Europe, chiefly at Paris, where he was attached to the legation of Edward Livingston. Theodore married Sarah Morgan Ashburner of Stockbridge on 28 September 1835, and they had seven children, three of whom died in infancy. On his return home he joined his uncle Robert Sedgwick's practice in May 1835 in New York and taking over the law office when Robert was debilitated by a stroke in 1838, which he prosecuted with great industry and success till about 1850.