Tapping Reeve

Tapping Reeve (October 1, 1744 – December 13, 1823)^{[citation needed]} was an American lawyer, judge, and law educator. In 1784 he opened the Litchfield Law School, the first law school in the United States, in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was also the brother-in-law of the third vice-president of the United States, Aaron Burr.^[1][2]

Tapping Reeve
Judge Tapping Reeve
Born	October 1, 1744 Brookhaven, Province of New York
Died	December 13, 1823(1823-12-13) (aged 79) Litchfield, Connecticut, US
Education	College of New Jersey (AB, 1763; AM, 1766)
Occupations	Judge lawyer educator
Spouses	Sarah "Sally" Burr ​ ​ (m. 1771; died 1797)​ Elizabeth "Betsy" Thompson ​ ​ (m. 1799)​
Children	Aaron Burr Reeve
Parent(s)	Abner Reeve Deborah Tapping
Relatives	Aaron Burr (brother-in-law) Aaron Burr Sr. (father-in-law)

Early life

Tapping Reeve was born in Brookhaven, New York, on Long Island, to Reverend Abner Reeve (1708–1798).^{[citation needed]} He graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) with a bachelor's degree in 1763, and continued on to earn a master's degree in 1766.^{[citation needed]}

During his graduate studies at Princeton, Reeve also served as a headmaster of a grammar school in nearby Elizabeth, New Jersey, associated with the college.^{[citation needed]} There, he tutored the two children of the college president, Rev. Aaron Burr Sr.: his son Aaron Burr Jr., a future Vice President of the United States, and his daughter Sarah Burr (known as Sally).^{[citation needed]} Reeve married Sarah Burr on June 4, 1771, when he was 26 years old and she was 17 years old.^{[citation needed]}

Career

Reeve tutored at Princeton from 1767 to 1770.^{[citation needed]} In 1771 he began to study law with Judge Jesse Root of Hartford, Connecticut. In 1772 he moved to Litchfield, situated on the crossroads of important inland trade routes, to open a new law practice.^{[citation needed]} In 1773, he built a six-room, two-story house.^{[citation needed]}

Reeve, while a fervent supporter of the patriot cause, did not enter active service early in the Revolutionary War. His wife's poor health held him at home.^{[citation needed]} However, in December 1776, the Connecticut Assembly called upon him to travel the state to drum up volunteers for the Continental Army. He then accepted a commission as an officer and accompanied his recruits as far as New York before returning to his ailing wife.^{[citation needed]}

Litchfield Law School, from a 1906 postcard

Reeve took his brother-in-law, Aaron Burr Jr. as a law student.^{[citation needed]} In the beginning, Aaron Burr lived upstairs and took instruction in the downstairs parlor, adjacent to the gathering room where Reeve held mock court.^{[citation needed]} Also on the first floor was Reeve's private law office.^{[citation needed]}

In 1781 Reeve worked with Theodore Sedgwick to represent Elizabeth Freeman (known as Bett), a slave in Sheffield, Massachusetts, in a legal bid for her freedom.^{[citation needed]} Bett had listened to discussions related to the Sheffield Declaration, and to a reading of the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, the latter containing the phrase "all men are born free and equal". She then asked Sedgwick to take her case to a local court.^{[citation needed]} Reeve and Sedgwick successfully secured her freedom on constitutional grounds.^{[citation needed]} The case, Brom & Bett v. Ashley, set a precedent that led to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts.^{[citation needed]}

Due in part to notoriety gained from the Elizabeth Freeman case, Reeve's student enrollment began to grow. In 1784, he added a second building (known as the Samuel Seymour House) to house and instruct his law students.^{[citation needed]} Among the students was John C. Calhoun^{[citation needed]} who, like Aaron Burr, became Vice President of the United States.

Reeve unsuccessfully ran for Congress six times in the 1790s: he was first a candidate in the 1790 election for Connecticut's five at-large congressional seats, in which the top five candidates would win; Reeve placed sixth.^[3] He was then a candidate in a separate December 1790 special election for one of the five seats, finishing fourth of seven candidates.^[4] He later ran in the 1792 at-large election, and in an April 1793 special election for the seat vacated by Jonathan Sturges, finishing last in the latter two.^[5][6] His last two attempts were in a December 1797 special election and the 1798 at-large election.^[7][8]

In 1798, Reeve became a judge of Connecticut's Superior Court. He then hired James Gould, a former student, to assist in running the school. Together, they built up the most prominent law school of its time.^{[citation needed]}

Reeve is also noted for bringing Reverend Lyman Beecher (father of Harriet Beecher Stowe) to Litchfield in 1810 to serve as a Presbyterian minister for over 25 years, during which time he became notable for his preaching against alcohol and Unitarianism.^{[citation needed]}

In 1814, Reeve was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut.^{[citation needed]} At this time, Gould took over the law school. Reeve maintained contact with the school until 1820, three years before his death. The school continued to operate until 1833.^{[citation needed]}

Reeve's Law of Baron and Femme, first published in 1816, was the preeminent American treatise on family law for much of the 19th century.^{[citation needed]} It underwent revisions and re-publication in 1846, 1867, and 1888.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life and family

Reeve's only child, Aaron Burr Reeve, was born on October 3, 1780.^{[citation needed]} Aaron Burr Reeve went on to graduate from Yale, and became a lawyer in Troy, New York.^{[citation needed]}

Sarah Reeve was often in ill health, and died on March 30, 1797.^{[citation needed]} In 1799, Reeve married Elizabeth "Betsy" Thompson, with whom he had no children.^{[citation needed]}

Reeve died on December 13, 1823, in Litchfield, Connecticut, at the age of 79. His home, now known as Tapping Reeve House and Law School, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.^[9]

Works

• The Law of Baron and Femme; of Parent and Child; of Guardian and Ward; of Master and Servant, etc. (New Haven, 1816; 2d ed., by Lucius E. Chittenden, Burlington, Vt., 1846; with appendix by J. W. Allen, 1857; 3d ed., by Amasa J. Parker and C. E. Baldwin, Albany, 1862)
• Treatise on the Law of Descents in the Several United States of America (New York, 1825)