Cro-Cuy: Crocker through Cuyler

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


CROCKER, Edwin B., abolitionist.


CROMWELL, Robert I., 1830-1880, African American, medical doctor, writer, abolitionist.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 3, p. 348)


CROOKS, Adam, 1824-1874, anti-slavery advocate, temperance activist, Wesleyan Methodist minister.

(Haines, 1990)


CROSBY, Fanny, 1820-1915, poet, lyricist, composer, abolitionist.  Supported anti-slavery Whig Party, later Lincoln and the Union.  Wrote patriotic poems and songs. 

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 567)


CROSBY, Josiah, abolitionist, Jaffrey, New Hampshire, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1841-43.


CROSBY, William Bedlow, 1786-1865, New York, philanthropist.  Officer in the New York auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 17; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 40)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 17:

CROSBY, William Bedlow, philanthropist, born in New York city, 7 February, 1786; died there, 18 March, 1865. His parents died when he was two years old, and he was adopted by Colonel Henry Rutgers, his mother's uncle, from whom he received a large part of the old Rutgers estate, comprising most of the present seventh ward of New York city. He never engaged in business, but gave his time and attention to the care of his property and to works of benevolence. He was connected with many societies, and spent a large part of his income in private charities. By virtue of his father's service in the war of the Revolution, he was made a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


CROSS, John, clergyman, anti-slavery agent.  Congregational Minister in Geneva and Oriskany Falls, New York.  Lectured on abolition and anti-slavery.  He became interested in the anti-slavery cause while attending the Oneida Institute.  He lectured in Collinsville, Copenhagen, Constableville and in New York City.  Cross was President of Wheaton College, founded as an abolitionist institution and a “reform-oriented anti-slavery [institution].”  Cross was a conductor in the Underground Railroad, allowing slaves to be hidden on the college campus.  Cross worked actively with abolitionist Johnathan Blanchard.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 186; Mass, David, 2010, Marching to the Drumbeat of Abolitionism: Wheaton College and the Coming of the Civil War.)


CROSS, Joseph Warren, Boxboro, W. Boylston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-


CROSWELL, Harry, Reverend, 1778-1858, New Haven, Connecticut, clergyman.  Member, New Haven Committee of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 21; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 571; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 86)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 21:

CROSWELL, Harry, clergyman, born in West Hartford, Connecticut, 16 June, 1778; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 13 March, 1858. He was educated under the care of Reverend Dr. Perkins and Dr. Noah Webster. When quite young, he entered his brother's printing-office in Catskill, New York, and soon became editor of a paper issued there. He founded a Federalist newspaper called the “Balance” in Hudson, New York, in 1802, which became noted for the bitterness and scathing sarcasm of its editorials; and M r. Croswell became involved in many libel suits. The most celebrated of these was caused by an article on Jefferson, published in the “Wasp,” a paper controlled by Mr. Croswell, and Alexander Hamilton's last and one of his finest speeches was made in Croswell's defence at the trial. Croswell afterward edited a political newspaper in Albany, whither he removed in 1809, and was again prosecuted for libel by a Mr. Southwick, who recovered damages. Croswell called on his friends for money to make good this amount, and on their refusal determined to enter the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal church, though he had been brought up a Congregationalist. He was ordained deacon, 8 May, 1814, and had charge of Christ church, Hudson, till 1 January, 1815, when he became rector of Trinity church, New Haven, Connecticut, then the only Episcopal church in the city, holding services in an old wooden building on Church street till the opening of the new church edifice, on 22 February, 1816. He remained in New Haven till his death. One who knew him writes: “His tall figure and manly form, clerical garb, and high-topped boots with knee-buckles, impressed every beholder as they saw him walk the streets of New Haven. He was not a great preacher, but he had an extraordinary knowledge of human nature, and could ingratiate himself into every man's heart.” Trinity college gave him the degree of D. D. in 1831. He published “Young Churchman's Guide” (4 vols.); “Manual of Family Prayers” (New Haven); “Guide to the Holy Sacrament”; and a “Memoir” of his son, Reverend William Croswell, D. D. (New York, 1854). He left in manuscript “Annals of Trinity Church” and a voluminous diary. See “Letters of Waldegrave,” by Reverend G. W. Nichols (New York, 1886).  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


CROTHERS, Samuel, 1783-1856, Greenfield, Ohio, abolitionist, clergyman, noted theologian.  Vice president, 1833-1837, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.  Organized Paint Valley Abolitionist Society. Worked in Chillicothe Presbytery of Ohio.  Wrote articles against slavery in quarterly anti-slavery magazine. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 91-92, 135; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 21) See “Life and Writings of Samuel Crothers,” by Reverend A. Ritchie (Cincinnati 1857).

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 21:

CROTHERS, Samuel, clergyman, born near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 22 October, 1783; died in Oswego, Illinois, 20 July, 1856. He went to Lexington, Kentucky, with his father in 1787, entered the academy there in 1798, and, after studying at the New York theological seminary, returned to Kentucky in 1809, and was licensed to preach by the Kentucky presbytery. After a year of missionary work, he was settled, in 1810, over the churches of Chillicothe and Greenfield, Ohio, but in 1813 devoted himself to the latter alone. In company with his former teacher in New York, Dr. Mason, he opposed close communion, and the exclusive use of what has been called inspired psalmody. Trouble growing out of his opinions on these subjects led him, in 1818, to resign his charge and move to Winchester, Kentucky; but he returned to Greenfield in 1820, organized a new church, and remained pastor of it till his death. Dr. Crothers was a concise and vigorous writer and an eloquent preacher. See “Life and Writings of Samuel Crothers,” by Reverend A. Ritchie (Cincinnati 1857). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 21.


CROWE, John Finley, abolitionist, newspaper publisher, The Abolitionist Intelligencer, founded 1822, Shelby, Kentucky, and editor of the Missionary Magazine of the Kentucky Abolition Society.  Crowe and his associates were constantly under threat. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 95, 118; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 37)


CROZER, Samuel, agent of the American Colonization Society.  Went to Africa with Samuel Bacon and John Banson to supervise the society’s first expedition to send freemen to Africa under the Slave Act of 1819. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 57-61)


CROZIER, Hiram F., abolitionist, New York, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1849-1851.


CRUKSHANK, Joseph, abolitionist leader, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Guardians, the Philadelphia Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Basker, James G., gen. ed. Early American Abolitionists: A Collection of Anti-Slavery Writings, 1760-1820. New York: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2005, pp. x, 5, 33, 104, 106, 111; Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129)


CRUMMELL, Alexander, 1819-1898, African American, clergyman, professor, African nationalist, anti-slavery activist and lecturer.  Lectured in England against American slavery.  Supported colonization of Blacks to Africa.  Worked in New York office of the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Correspondent for the Colored American. 

(Rigsby, 1987; Wilson, 1989; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 820; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 3, p. 366)


CUFFEE, Paul (Cuffe), 1759-1818, free Black, sea captain, author, A Brief Account of the Settlement and Present Situation of the Colony of Sierra Leone, 1812, Society of Friends from Massachusetts, Quaker, abolitionist, among the first Americans to colonize free Blacks in Africa.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 123-125; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 23, 24, 32, 164, 192, 568; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 26; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 585)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 585:

CUFFE, PAUL (January 17, 1759-September 9, 1817), negro seaman, was born at Cuttyhunk, on one of the Elizabeth Islands not far from New Bedford. He was the seventh of the ten children of Cuffe Slocum, a Massachusetts negro who had purchased his freedom, and of Ruth Moses, an Indian woman. When sixteen years of age he was a sailor on a whaling vessel. On his third voyage he was captured by the British and held in New York for three months. When released he repaired to Westport to engage in agriculture. He studied arithmetic and navigation, and after various unhappy experiences with small vessels, including the capture of his goods by pirates, he made a successful voyage, in 1795 launched a sixty-nine-ton vessel, the Ranger, and by 1806 owned one ship, two brigs, and several smaller vessels, besides property in houses and lands. As early as 1778 he had persuaded his brothers to drop their father's slave name, Slocum, and to take his Christian name, Cuffe, as their surname. In 1780 he and his brother John raised before the courts of Massachusetts the question of the denial of the suffrage to citizens who had to pay taxes. For the moment the two men were not successful, but their efforts helped toward the act of 1783 by which negroes acquired legal rights and privileges in Massachusetts; and especially did they assist in giving to New Bedford a tradition of just and equal treatment for all citizens. On February 25, 1783, Paul Cuffe was married to a young Indian woman, Alice Pequit. In 1797 he bought for $3,500 a farm on the Westport River where he built a public-school house and employed a teacher. In 1808 he was received into the membership of the Society of Friends of Westport; and he later assisted materially in the building of a new meeting-house. As early as 1788 he had been prominent in the suggestion of an exodus of negroes to Africa. On January 1, 1811, with a crew of nine negro seamen, he sailed in the Traveller from Westport for Sierra Leone. In Freetown he formed the Friendly Society, which looked toward further immigration from America. Returning to America, April 19, 1812, he planned to make a yearly trip to Sierra Leone. On December 10, 1815, with a total of nine families and thirty-eight persons he set forth, expending not less than $4,000 of his own funds in the venture. He was well received and hoped to do even more, but his health failed in 1817. Tall, well-formed, and athletic, he was a man of remarkable dignity, initiative, tact, and piety, and the unselfishness of his efforts impressed all who knew him. He left an estate of $20,000.

[H. N. Sherwood, "Paul Cuffe," in Journal of Negro History, April 1923, VIII, 153-232; Peter Williams, Discourse on the Death of Paul Cuffe (1817); Memoir of Captain Paul Cuffee (York, England, 1812).]

B. B.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 26:

CUFFEE, Paul, philanthropist, born on one of the Elizabeth isles, near New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1759; died 7 September, 1818. His father was a negro, born in Africa, who had been a slave, and his mother an Indian. He followed a seafaring life, became owner of a vessel, which he manned entirely with negroes, and acquired a large fortune. He was an influential member of the Society of Friends. In his later years he interested himself in the scheme of colonizing American freedmen on the western coast of Africa, corresponded with friends of the enterprise in England and Africa, visited the colony in his own ship in 1811 to study its advantages, and in 1815 carried out thirty-eight colored emigrants and provided means for establishing them in Africa. He applied to the British government for leave to land other companies of colored people in Sierra Leone, but died before the permission came. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, Pt. 2, pp. 585.


CULLUM, Jeremiah H., Reverend, Baltimore, Maryland, clergyman.  Agent for the Maryland State Colonization Society. 

(Campbell, Penelope. Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831-1857. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1971, p. 202)


CULVER, Erastus D., Brooklyn, New York, abolitionist leader.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, p. 104)


CULVER, Mr., anti-slavery member of Congress, Washington County.

(Appletons, 1888)


CUMMINGS, Hiram, Duxbury, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1843-46.


CURTIS, Benjamin Robbins, 1809-1874, Watertown, Massachusetts, jurist, lawyer, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1851-1857.  Dissented from majority court decision on the Dred Scott case.  Argued that U.S. Congress had the legal right to prohibit slavery, and disagreed with the decision that held that “a person of African descent could not be a citizen of the United States.” 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 35; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 609)

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 35:

CURTIS, Benjamin Robbins, jurist, born in Watertown, Massachusetts, 4 November, 1809; died in Newport, R.I., 15 September, 1874. He was graduated at Harvard in 1829, admitted to the bar in 1832, and, after practising for a short time in Northfield, Massachusetts, removed to Boston. The extent and readiness of his attainments, his accuracy, and his logical mind, soon made him prominent in his profession. In 1851 President Fillmore appointed him to the U. S. supreme bench. In the celebrated “Dred Scott” case he dissented from the decision of the court and made a powerful argument in support of his conclusions. He upheld the right of congress to prohibit slavery, and declared his dissent from “that part of the opinion of the majority of the court in which it is held that a person of African descent cannot be a citizen of the United States.” On this memorable occasion only one other justice of the seven coincided with the opinion of Judge Curtis. He resigned in 1857, and resumed practice in Boston, frequently appearing before the supreme court at Washington in important cases. He was for two years a member of the Massachusetts legislature, but took little part in politics, devoting himself with earnestness to his profession. In the impeachment trial of President Johnson in 1868 Judge Curtis was one of the counsel for the defence. The answer to the articles of impeachment was read by him, and was largely his work. He opened the case in a speech that occupied two days in delivery, and that was commended for legal soundness and clearness. He was the democratic candidate for CT. S. senator in 1874. He published “Reports of Cases in the Circuit Courts of the United States” (2 vols., Boston, 1854); “Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States,” with notes and a digest (22 vols., Boston); and “Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States,” from the origin of the court to 1854. Of his “Memoir and Writings” (2 vols., Boston, 1880), the first volume contains a memoir by George Ticknor Curtis, and the second “Miscellaneous Writings,” edited by his son, Benjamin R. Curtis. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888. 


CURTIS, Harvey Willard, 1824-1902, Ohio, abolitionist.  Republican lawmaker from Ohio.  Active in the Underground Railroad, his house was a station for fugitive slaves.


CURTIS, Jonathan, abolitionist, Pittsfield, New Hampshire, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Executive Committee, 1840-41.


CURTIS, Spencer W., New York, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


CURTISS, H. W., Dr., 1824-1902, Ohio, statesman, opponent of slavery.  Republican lawmaker from Ohio.  President of the Ohio Senate.  Lieutenant Governor of Ohio, 1877-1878.  Aided fugitive slaves.  His home was a station on the Underground Railroad. 

(Brenn, 1880; Crabb, 1897)


CURTISS, R., New York, American Abolition Society

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


CUSHING, Caleb, 1800-1879, Boston, Massachusetts, statesman, soldier, lawyer, politician, U.S. Attorney General.  Argued against slavery and defended the principles of the American Colonization Society and colonization. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 38-39; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 623; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 210)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 38-39:

CUSHING, Caleb, statesman, born in Salisbury, Massachusetts, 17 January, 1800; died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, 2 January, 1879. He was graduated at Harvard in 1817, and for two years was a tutor in mathematics and natural philosophy. He then studied law, was admitted to the bar, and settled in Newburyport. He rose rapidly in his profession, and, although busily engaged with his practice, found time to devote to literature and politics, and was a frequent contributor to periodicals. In 1825 he was elected a representative to the lower house of the Massachusetts legislature, and in 1826 a member of the state senate. At this time he belonged to the then republican party. In 1829 Mr. Cushing visited Europe, and remained abroad two years. In 1833 he was again elected a representative from Newburyport to the Massachusetts legislature for two years, but in 1834 was elected from the Essex north district of Massachusetts a representative to congress, and served for four consecutive terms, until 1843. He supported the nomination of John Quincy Adams for the presidency, and was a whig until the accession of John Tyler. When the break in the whig party occurred, during the administration of President Tyler, Mr. Cushing was one of the few northern whigs that continued to support the president, and became classed as a democrat. Soon afterward he was nominated for secretary of the treasury, but the senate refused to confirm him. He was subsequently confirmed as commissioner to China, and made the first treaty between that country and the United States. On his return he was again elected a representative in the Massachusetts legislature. In 1847 he raised a regiment for the Mexican war at his own expense, became its colonel, and was subsequently made brigadier-general. While still in Mexico he was nominated by the democratic party of his state for governor, but failed in the election. From 1850 till 1852 he was again a member of the legislature of his native state, and, at the expiration of his term, was appointed associate justice of the state supreme court. In 1853 President Pierce appointed him U. S. attorney-general, from which office he retired in 1857. In 1857, 1858, and 1859 he again served in the legislature of Massachusetts. In April, 1860, he was president of the Democratic national convention in Charleston, South Carolina, and was among the seceders from that body who met in Baltimore. At the close of 1860 he was sent to Charleston by President Buchanan, as a confidential commissioner to the secessionists of South Carolina; but his mission effected nothing. Mr. Cushing was frequently employed during the civil war in the departments at Washington, and in 1866 was appointed one of the three commissioners to revise and codify the laws of congress. In 1868 he was sent to Bogotá to arrange a diplomatic difficulty. In 1872 he was one of the counsel for the United States at the Geneva conference for the settlement of the Alabama claims, and in 1873 was nominated for the office of chief justice of the United States; but the nomination was subsequently withdrawn. A year later he was nominated and confirmed as minister to Spain, whence he returned home in 1877. His publications include a “History of the Town of Newburyport’ (1826); “The Practical Principles of Political Economy” (1826); “Historical and Political Review of the Late Revolution in France” (2 vols., Boston, 1833); “Reminiscences of Spain” (2 vols., Boston, 1833); “Growth and Territorial Progress of the United States” (1839); “Life of William H. Harrison” (Boston, 1840); and “The Treaty of Washington” (New York, 1873). Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


CUSHING, Henry W., abolitionist, Providence, Rhode Island.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833, Vice President, 1833-1837.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


CUSHING, Milton B., Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-38.


CUSHING, William, 1732-1810, lawyer, jurist, opponent of slavery, member of the Constitutional Convention of Massachusetts, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, First Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, appointed by George Washington, Acting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1794.  Wrote in the case Commonwealth v. Jennings, 1783, which abolished slavery in the state of Massachusetts.  Cushing wrote:  “As to the doctrine of slavery and the right of Christians to hold Africans in perpetual servitude, and sell and treat them as we do our horses and cattle, that… has been heretofore countenanced by the Province Laws… a different idea has taken place with the people of America more favorable to the natural rights of mankind, and to that natural, innate desire of Liberty, with which Heaven… has inspired all the human race.  And upon this ground our Constitution of Government, by which the people of this Commonwealth have solemnly bound themselves, sets out with declaring that all men are born free and equal—and that every subject is entitled to liberty, and to have it guarded by the laws, as well as life and property—in short is totally repugnant to the idea of being born slaves… the idea of slavery is inconsistent with our own conduct and constitution; and there can be no such thing as perpetual servitude of a rational creature, unless his liberty is forfeited by some criminal conduct or given up by personal consent or contract.”

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 24, 235; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 40; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 633; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 5, p. 918)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 2, Pt. 2, p. 633:

CUSHING, WILLIAM (March 1, 1732-September 13, 1810), jurist, was born at Scituate, Massachusetts, the eldest son of John Cushing by his second wife, Mary Cotton. He was descended on both sides from the old office-holding oligarchy of provincial Massachusetts. His maternal grandfather, Josiah Cotton, schoolmaster, county judge, member of the General Court, and preacher to the Indians at Plymouth, was a grandson of the famous John Cotton, first minister of Boston. The Cushing family descended from Matthew Cushing, who settled at Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638, and was the ancestor in other lines of Thomas, Caleb, and Luther S. Cushing. William Cushing's grandfather and father both served as members of the Governor's Council and of the superior court, the highest law court of the Province. After graduating at Harvard in 1751 Cushing taught school for a year at Roxbury, Massachusetts, and then studied law in the office of the famous provincial lawyer, Jeremiah Gridley of Boston. Admitted to the bar in 1755, he practised in Scituate until the creation of the new county of Lincoln in the district of Maine in 1760 required the appointment of county officers. William Cushing received the posts of register of deeds and judge of probate, while his younger brother Charles was appointed sheriff. The brothers took up their residence at the new county seat, Pownalborough, now Dresden, on the Kennebec, where for the next twelve years Cushing was the only lawyer in a back-woods community, eight days' journey from Boston and sparsely settled by French and German immigrants. The only knowledge we have of him in these years is in connection with his professional appearances before the superior court at Falmouth, where he was often associated in cases with John Adams, who traveled the Maine circuit.

In 1771, John Cushing, William's father, resigned the post as judge of the superior court which he had held for twenty-three years, and William, returning to Massachusetts, became his successor (1772). The British crown determined to make the provincial courts independent of colonial opinion by paying the judges' salaries. In March 1774 the Massachusetts General Court voted the judges of the superior court salaries from the colonial treasury, and called on them to refuse the crown grant. Four judges, including Cushing, obeyed: Oliver, the Chief Justice, refused and was impeached. Cushing's attitude at this juncture is described by a contemporary: "He was a sensible, modest man, well acquainted with law, but remarkable for the secrecy of his opinions .... He readily resigned the royal stipend without any observations of his own; yet it was thought at the time that it was with a reluctance that his taciturnity could not conceal. By this silent address he retained the confidence of the court faction, nor was he less a favorite among the republicans" (Mercy Otis Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805, Volume I, p. n8). Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which Cushing, though holding high office, succeeded in remaining in the background during the pre-revolutionary struggle. In 1776, however, he drafted the instructions from his home town of Scituate in favor of independence.

In 1775 the revolutionary council of state, which took over the government of Massachusetts, reorganized the courts, retaining Cushing alone of the previous judges as a member of the new supreme judicial court. John Adams was appointed chief justice, but never took his seat, Cushing presiding in his absence as senior associate justice; and when Adams resigned in 1777. Cushing became chief justice, a post which he held for the next twelve years. The system of reporting the opinions of the courts not yet having been introduced, a few newspaper notices of charges to grand juries are the only record of Cushing's judicial labors in Massachusetts except in one important case. This was a criminal action tried at Worcester in 1783 against one Jennison for assault committed in attempting to repossess himself of a slave. Cushing charged the jury that the clause of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights of 1780, which declared that "all men are born free and equal," operated legally to abolish slavery in the state. During Shays's rebellion one of the objects of the malcontents was to prevent the sittings of the courts, and they attempted to obstruct the supreme judicial court at Springfield on September 29, 1786. It is probably of Cushing's behavior on this occasion that a record has been preserved:  "The Chief Justice was applied to by a committee from the mob and entreated to yield to their wishes; he replied, that the law appointed the court to be held at that time, and it was their duty to hold it accordingly; and, followed by his Associates, he proceeded into the street. His countenance was blanched to paleness, but his step was firm. As he advanced, the crowd opened before him ... and the court was regularly opened" (Flanders, Lives and Times of the Chief Justices, II, 34).

Cushing was a member of the Convention of 1779 which framed the first state constitution of Massachusetts, and was vice-president of the state convention of 1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution. On the organization of the United States Supreme Court, he was the first associate justice appointed. During his twenty-one years on the Court, he delivered opinions, all of them brief, in nineteen cases, of which the most important are Chisholm vs. Georgia (2 Dallas, 419), Ware vs. Hylton (3 Dallas, 199), and Calder vs. Bull (3 Dallas, 386). In them he concurred with the majority of the judges and did not add to their exposition of the law. During the absence of Jay on his mission to England, Cushing acted as chief justice, and administered the oath to Washington at his second inauguration. In 1796 on Jay's resignation and after the Senate had rejected Rutledge as his successor, Washington commissioned Cushing as chief justice, but after keeping the commission a week he returned it, requesting to be excused on the ground of ill health. In 1794 his name had been presented by his friends as a candidate for governor of Massachusetts against Samuel Adams, and while he made no active canvass, he received 7,159 votes as against 14,465 for Adams.

The chief work of a Supreme Court justice during Cushing's service was to hold the federal circuit courts. This duty took Judge Cushing all over the country. "His travelling equipage was a four-wheeled phaeton, drawn by a pair of horses; which he drove. It was remarkable for its many ingenious arrangements (all of his contrivance) for carrying books, choice groceries, and other comforts. Mrs. Cushing always accompanied him, and generally read aloud while riding. His faithful servant, Prince, a jet-black negro whose parents had been slaves in the family . . . followed behind in a one-horse vehicle, with the baggage" (Flanders, op. cit., II, 38). Cushing was noted for the ceremoniousness of his deportment. He was the last American judge to wear the full-bottomed English judicial wig. "I very well remember," wrote one who had seen him, "the strong impression his appearance made upon my mind when I first saw him, as he was walking in a street in Portland. He was a man whose deportment surpassed all the ideas of personal dignity I had ever formed. His wig added much to the imposing effect" (J. D. Hopkins, Address to the Cumberland Bar, Portland, Me ., 1833, p. 44). He is said to have finally abandoned this wig in consequence of the unpleasant observation it attracted when he first held court in New York. The boys followed him in the street, but he was not conscious of the cause until a sailor, who came suddenly upon him, exclaimed, "My eye ! What a wig!" Cushing was of medium height and slender, with bright blue eyes and a prominent aquiline nose. His portrait was painted by Sharpless in 1799. His few letters which have been preserved display a playful wit not reflected in his public character. His manner is said to have been benign and cheerful, and his eloquence in addressing juries is universally commented on. Judge Cushing died at Scituate, September 13, 18m, without issue. In 1774 he had married Hannah Phillips of Middletown, Connecticut, who died in 1834 at the age of eighty.

[There is no biography of Cushing. The fullest account is in Henry Flanders, The Lives and Times of the Chie f Justices of Supreme Court of the U.S. (1858), Volume II, based on a manuscript sketch by Chas. Cushing Payne; the most recent account is a paper by Chief Justice Arthur P. Rugg in Yale Law Journal, December 1920, Volume XXX, pp. 128-44. Sam. Deane, History of Scituate, Massachusetts (1831) gives some details. For Cushing's life in Maine, sec articles in the Maine Historical Society Colls., 1 series, Volume VI, pp. 44-47, and 2 series, Volume I, pp. 301 ff., and 313-20. Sec also Jas. D. Hopkins, An Address to the Members of the Cumberland Bar (1833).]

J. D.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 40:

CUSHING, William, jurist, born in Scituate, Massachusetts, 1 March, 1732; died there, 13 September, 1810. He was graduated at Harvard in 1751, studied law with Jeremy Gridley, became attorney-general of Massachusetts, was appointed judge of probate of Lincoln county, Maine, in 1768, became judge of the Massachusetts superior court in 1772, chief justice in 1777, and in 1780 was chosen the first chief justice of Massachusetts under the state constitution. At the beginning of the Revolution he stood almost alone among the superior officials in supporting the cause of independence. His grandfather and his father (both named John) were judges of the superior court, and his father, whom he succeeded as chief justice, presided over the trial of British soldiers for the Boston massacre of 5 March, 1770. On 27 September, 1789, Judge Cushing was appointed an associate justice of the U. S. supreme court. President Washington nominated him chief justice in 1796, but he declined. He was one of the founders of the American academy of arts and sciences in 1780. In 1788 he was vice-president of the Massachusetts convention that ratified the federal constitution. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 40.


CUSHMAN, J. H., Roxbury, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1846.


CUSHMAN, John P., abolitionist, Troy, New York, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1835-37.


CUSTIS, George Washington Parke, 1781-1857, author, member of the American Colonization Society.  Stepson of George Washington. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 45; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 3, Pt. 1, p. 9; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 119)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 45:

CUSTIS, George Washington Parke, author, born at Mount Airy, Maryland, 30 April, 1781; died at Arlington House, Fairfax county, Virginia, 10 October, 1857. His father, Colonel John Parke Custis, the son of Mrs. Washington by her first husband, was aide-de-camp to Washington at the siege of Yorktown, and died 5 November, 1781, aged twenty-eight. The son had his early home at Mount Vernon, pursued his classical studies at St. John's college and at Princeton, and remained a member of Washington's family until the death of Mrs. Washington in 1802, when he built Arlington House on an estate of 1,000 acres near Washington, which he had inherited from his father. After the death in 1852 of his sister, Eleanor Parke Custis, wife of Major Lawrence Lewis, he was the sole surviving member of Washington’s family, and his residence was for many years a favorite resort, owing to the interesting relics of that family which it contained. Mr. Custis married in early life Mary Lee Fitzhugh, of Virginia, and left a daughter, who married Robert E. Lee. The Arlington estate was confiscated during the civil war, and is now held as national property, and is the site of a national soldiers’ cemetery. The house is represented in the accompanying illustration. Mr. Custis was in his early days an eloquent and effective speaker. He wrote orations and plays, and during his latter years executed a number of large paintings of Revolutionary battles. His “Recollections of Washington,” originally contributed to the “National Intelligencer,” was published in book-form, with a memoir by his daughter and notes by Benson J. Lossing (New York, 1860). Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


CUTHBERT, John A., 1788-1881, U.S. Congressman, Georgia, member of the Putnam County, Georgia, auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 45-46; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 45-46:

CUTHBERT, John A., jurist, born in Savannah, Georgia, 3 June, 1788; died near Mobile, Alabama, 22 September, 1881. His father was a colonel in the Revolutionary army. He was graduated at Princeton in 1805, and in 1809 became a law student in New York. In 1810 he was elected to the legislature of Georgia, from Liberty county, which he continued to represent for years. During the war of 1812 he commanded a volunteer company to protect the coast. In 1818 Georgia elected her representatives in congress on one general ticket, and Cuthbert was thus chosen. At that time the Missouri question occupied the attention of congress, and Judge Cuthbert took an active and zealous part in maintaining the southern side of it. In 1831 he became editor, and subsequently proprietor, of “The Federal Union,” a paper published at Milledgeville, Georgia, and in 1837 removed to Mobile to practise his profession. In 1840 he was elected judge of the county court of Mobile, and in 1852 appointed judge of the circuit court. Appletons’ Cylcopædia of American Biography, 1888.


CUTLER, Calvin, abolitionist, Maine, Winham, New Hampshire.  Vice president, 1833-1835, Manager, 1835-1840, and founding member of the  American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


CUTLER, Hannah Tracy, 1815-1896, Becket, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Leader of the Temperance and women’s suffrage-rights movements, lecturer, educator, physician.  Helped found Women’s Anti-Slavery Society, member of the Free Soil Party, organizer of the Woman’s Kansas Aid Convention in 1856.  Served as President of the Western Union Aid Commission in Chicago, 1862-1864. 

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 58n40; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, p. 40) She is the author of “Woman as she Was, Is, and Should be” (New York, 1846); “Phillipia, or a Woman's Question” (Dwight, Illinois, 1886); and “The Fortunes of Michael Doyle, or Home Rule for Ireland” (Chicago, 1886).

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 45-46:

CUTLER, Hannah Maria Tracy, physician, born in Becket, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, 25 December, 1815. She is a daughter of John Conant, and was educated in the common school of Becket. In 1834 she married the Reverend J. M. Tracy, who died in 1843. Subsequently she prepared herself for teaching, and was matron of the Deaf and dumb asylum at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1848-'9. In July, 1851, she visited England as a newspaper correspondent at the World's fair. She was also at the same time a delegate from the United States at the peace congress in London, and while in England delivered the first lectures ever given there on the legal rights of women. In 1852 she married Samuel Cutler and removed to Illinois, where she labored assiduously for the reform of the laws relating to women. She was president of the Western union aid commission, Chicago, Illinois, in 1862-'4. In 1873 she visited France, in company with her son, J. M. Tracy, artist, and remained there till 1875. After her graduation as a physician at the Homeopathic college in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1879, she settled at Cobden, Illinois, where she has practised with success. She is the author of “Woman as she Was, Is, and Should be” (New York, 1846); “Phillipia, or a Woman's Question” (Dwight, Illinois, 1886); and “The Fortunes of Michael Doyle, or Home Rule for Ireland” (Chicago, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume II, pp. 46.


CUYLER, Samuel, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.