Thomas Day


Gender:
Male
Born:
July 6, 1777
Died:
March 1, 1855
Home Town:
New Preston, CT
Later Residences:
Hartford, CT
Marriage(s):
Sarah Coit Day (March 18, 1813)
Biographical Notes:
Thomas Day was a sixth generation descendant of Robert Day of Hartford, Connecticut, born in England in 1634 and one of the first settlers of Massachusetts as well as an early settler of Hartford with Rev. Thomas Hooker. Thomas Day's parents were Rev. Jeremiah Day and his third wife Abigail Osborne Day.

Day's education began with instruction in Latin and Greek by his father and brother. He studied at an academy in New Milford and then graduated from Yale College in 1797. Day then attended the Litchfield Law School. After leaving the law school, he took his brother's place as a tutor at William's College for one year and read the law with Daniel Dewey. He then moved to Hartford in September of 1799 where he studied further under Theodore Dwight.

In 1805, Day began to attend ...
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Quotes:
"The studies of the Lawyer are every day and uninteresting. If every case in law were to be studied upon the basis of reason and justice, the .... lisation (?) would be more pleasant, but a great part of our law is founded, not in the nature of things, nor on any positive statute of the legislature, but merely upon the narrow, technical notions of judges who sat on the English bench some centuries ago. After one sett of errors was introduced, another sett was soon found necessary as order to preserve the symetry of the legal system. As error is always crocked, that very chinck stone which was put in to stop one gape in the wall soon pushed out of its place, and made a hole the other side. Fictions (?) were then thrown in, like shrub oak bush, to repair the break. Now as Courts of Law are regulated ...
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Additional Notes:
http://books.google.com/books?id=0moyq1cxDV0C&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=%22lemuel+whitman+abortion&source=bl&ots=SyN2uwDbUy&sig=5AafKhwbEqiQs_64dm2tzgSwuqA&hl=en&ei=8kC7TJeKPI36swOK5aSfBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22lemuel%20whitman%20abortion&f=false

On April 3, 1798, William Smith wrote to Day regarding a sexual affair between a domestic worker and a Litchfield Law Student: he can “kiss” a “certain lady that works at Mr. Deming’s once in a few weeks by name of Miss P.L.”

Education
Years at LLS:
1797
Other Education:
Tutored by Barzzilai Slosson of Sharon, CT and in 1793 attended the New Milford Academy. He graduated from Yale College in 1797.

Profession / Service
Profession:
Lawyer; Editor; Political Office
Admitted To Bar:
Hartford, CT in December 1799
State Posts:
Secretary of State (CT) 1810-1835
Local Posts:
Associate Judge of County Court (Hartford County, CT) 1815-1823
Chief Judge of County Court (Hartford County, CT) 1823-1833
Judge of City Court (Hartford, CT) 1818-1831

Related Objects and Documents
In the Ledger:
help The Citation of Attendance provides primary source documentation of the student’s attendance at the Litchfield Female Academy and/or the Litchfield Law School. If a citation is absent, the student is thought to have attended but currently lacks primary source confirmation.

Records for the schools were sporadic, especially in the formative years of both institutions. If instructors kept comprehensive records for the Litchfield Female Academy or the Litchfield Law School, they do not survive. Researchers and staff have identified students through letters, diaries, family histories and genealogies, and town histories as well as catalogues of students printed in various years. Art and needlework have provided further identification of Female Academy Students, and Litchfield County Bar records document a number of Law School students. The history of both schools and the identification of the students who attended them owe credit to the early 20th century research and documentation efforts of Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Samuel Fisher, and the late 20th century research and documentation efforts of Lynne Templeton Brickley and the Litchfield Historical Society staff.
CITATION OF ATTENDANCE:
"Moothall Society Record Books." Litchfield Law School Collection, Series 1, Subseries 3, Litchfield Historical Society.; Handwritten list of names on loose papers titled "prior to 1798," inside Catalogue of Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of C
Secondary Sources:
A Genealogical Register of the Descendants in the Male Line of Robert Day. New Haven: William Storer, Jun., 1840; Chapman, A.M., Rev. F.W.

The Coit Family. Hartford: The Press of Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1874.

New England Historic Genealogy Society. Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, Vol. 2. Published by the Society, 1881.

Putman, E. Some Chronicles of the Day Family. Riverside Press, 1893.

Cothren, William. History of Ancient Woodbury from the First Indian Deed in 1659 to 1879. Woodbury, CT, 1879.

Day, Thomas & James Murdock. Brief Memoirs of the Class of 1797. New Haven, CT: Yale College, 1848.

Mohr, James C. Abortion in America: The Origins and Evolution of National Policy. Oxford University Press, 1978.

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