Foot_silhouette_290
Silhouette of Ebenezer Foot

Ebenezer Foot

Other Name:
Ebenezer Foote
Gender:
Male
Born:
July 6, 1773
Died:
July 21, 1814
Home Town:
Watertown, CT
Later Residences:
Lansingburg, NY
Troy, NY
Albany, NY
Rensselaer, NY
Marriage(s):
Betsey Colt Foote (unknown)
Biographical Notes:
Ebenezer Foote was born July 6, 1773. He was the eldest son of Capt. John Foote and his second wife, Mary Peck Foote. He worked on the family farm in Westbury, Connecticut until he was twenty. After the harvest of 1792, he left the farm to pursue studies under Reverend John Foot, the Congregational minister of Cheshire, Connecticut. While studying he taught school to pay his expenses. In 1795 he furthered his education at the Litchfield Law School and was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1796 before moving to Lansingburgh, New York where, after selling his father's farm, he opened a legal practice.

Foote also entered the political arena and was affiliated with Ambrose Spencer, the New York State Attorney General and future mayor of Albany (1825-26). Foote was appointed assistant ...
[more]
Education
Years at LLS:
1795
Profession / Service
Profession:
Lawyer; Political Office
Admitted To Bar:
1796
Federal Posts:
Attorney General Assistant Attorney General appointed by Governor George Clinton (New York) 1801
Local Posts:
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Rensselaer County, NY)
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:
Handwritten list of names on loose papers titled "prior to 1798," inside Catalogue of Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849).
Secondary Sources:
Kilbourne, Dwight C. The Bench and Bar of Litchfield County, Connecticut 1709-1909. Litchfield, CT: Published by the Author, 1909.
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