Title
[Document, 1790 April 16- 1792 April 23
Library Location
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University
Name
Jay, John, 1745-1829 (Author)
Format
correspondence
Digital Project
Papers of John Jay
Date
April 16, 1790 - April 23, 1792
Language
English
Physical Description
34 pages
Subjects
United States--History--Constitutional period, 1789-1809; Jay, John, 1745-1829
Summary
John Jay's Diary of Circuit Court Duty, 1790-1792. Diary kept by Jay as he presided over the Eastern District of U.S. Circuit Court, 16 April 1790-21 May 1792. Diary entries preceded by Jay's notes on deaths in his family, inscribed on the front pasted down endpaper of the memorandum book that he used to record his travels and judicial activities. Circuit Court duty was one of the most onerous obligations placed on justices of the Supreme Court, and Jay's diary details his travels through the length and breadth of New England to hear cases. Details of places of accommodation along the way, mileage and expenses, accounts of conversations and encounters with old friends and interesting strangers en route, and proceedings of some of the cases that he heard. Notes cover five sessions of the Circuit Court, with Circuit Court sessions in Hartford and New Haven, Connecticut; Boston, Massachusetts; Portsmouth and Exeter, New Hampshire; Providence, Rhode Island; Bennington, Vermont; as well as the first sitting of the Supreme Court in Philadelphia in the summer of 1791. The diary entries are divided among the following Court sessions: 16 April-30 May 1790, ; 28 September-14 December 1790 21 June-27 July 1791; 11 October- 16 December 1791; 23 April-21 May 1792.
Identifier
columbia.jay.07351