Samuel Livermore (1786-1833)
MSA SC 3520-14599
Biography:
Born August 26, 1786, in Concord
New Hampshire. Son of Edward St. Loe and his first wife,
Mehitable (Harris) Livermore. Attended Harvard College,
1804. Never married. Died July 11, 1833, in Florence,
Alabama.
Lawyer and legal scholar. Samuel Livermore practiced law in
Massachusetts after his graduation from Harvard in 1804. During the War
of 1812, he served as a naval chaplain aboard the Chesapeake. In June 1813, he was
wounded and captured during an engagement with the HMS Shannon, and imprisoned in
Halifax, Nova Scotia. He later served in the Mediterranean before
leaving the Navy in 1816. The U.S. Navy honored Livermore by naming a
World War II transport ship after him, "the first naval chaplan to be
thus honored."1
Livermore moved to Baltimore after the war, where he practiced law
and helped Alexander
Contee Hanson, Jr., publish the newspaper the Federal Republican. On February 10, 1818, Governor
Charles Ridgely of Hampton appointed Livermore the District
Attorney for the 6th Judicial District. He resigned the position later
that year for reasons unknown and was replaced by Henry Maynadier
Murray in January 1819. By 1822, Livermore was living in New Orleans,
where he continued to practice law. Samuel Livermore died on July 11,
1833, in Florence, Alabama, while passing through on his way to visit
family members in New England.
Following his death, Livermore bequeathed his collection of nearly
400 Roman, Spanish, and French law books to the library at Harvard Law
School. He was also a well respected author in his own right. His first
work, A Treatise on the Law Relative
to Principals, Agents, Factor, Auctioneers, and Brokers, was
published in Boston in 1811 and was "the first American work of its
kind."2 A second, two volume, edition was published in
Baltimore in 1818. A third treatise, Dissertations
on the Questions which Arise from the Contrariety of the Positive Laws
of Different State and Nations, was published in New Orleans in
1828. These volumes remain relevant today, as evidenced by the citation
of one in a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court opinion.3
Notes:
1. "Livermore," Dictionary of
American Naval Fighting Ships. http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/l7/livermore-i.htm
Accessed on 15 September 2006.
2. Dumas Malone, ed. Dictionary
of
American Biography, Volume VI (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1964), 308.
3. Domino's Pizza, Inc. v. McDonald, 126 S. Ct. 1246, 163 L. Ed. 2d 1069 (2006).
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