Elisha Wolsey Peck (1799-1888) was the chief justice of the

Alabama Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Alabama is the highest court in the state of Alabama. The court consists of a chief justice and eight associate justices. Each justice is elected in partisan elections for staggered six-year terms. The Supreme Court is house ...

from 1869–1873 and the president of the 1867 Alabama State Constitutional Convention.

Background

Peck was born on August 7, 1799, in

Blenheim, New York Blenheim is a town in Schoharie County, New York, United States. The population was 377 at the 2010 census. The town was named after a land patent, which itself was named after the Battle of Blenheim. The Town of Blenheim is in the southwestern pa ...

. He began to study law in 1819. In 1824 he was admitted to practice in Superior Court at

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...

. The following year he was admitted to the bar in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

. He then moved to

Elyton, Alabama Elyton (Ely's Town), Alabama, was the county seat of Jefferson County, Alabama from 1821 to 1873. It was the county's second seat, after Carrollsville (1819-1821) (now the Birmingham neighborhood of Powderly). In 1873 the courthouse was moved t ...

where he practiced law, but a few years later moved to

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

. Peck served from 1839-1841 as chancellor of the Middle Division Chancery Court. Peck was an opponent of secession but did not actively aid the cause of the Union during the Civil War. He was a candidate for representative to the Alabama Constitutional Convention of 1865 but was defeated. In 1867, he moved to

Sycamore, Illinois Sycamore is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. It has a commercial district based and centered on Illinois Route 64. The population was 18577 at the 2020 census, up from 17,519 at the 2010 census. Sycamore is the county seat of De ...

then to

Rockford, Illinois Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...

and then back to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He was elected chairman of the Military Reconstruction Convention of 1867. Later that year, Peck, a member of the Republican Party, was chosen as chief justice of the

, where he served until retiring in 1874. He died at his home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on February 13, 1888. One of his children was poet

Samuel Minturn Peck Samuel Minturn Peck (November 4, 1854 – May 3, 1938) was an American poet, named first poet laureate of the state of Alabama. Biography Samuel Minturn Peck was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on November 4, 1854, the youngest of nine children ...

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References

Sources

* ttp://purl.lib.ua.edu/18441 Elisha Wolsey Peck papers, W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library, The University of Alabama. 1799 births 1888 deaths Politicians from Tuscaloosa, Alabama People from Schoharie County, New York Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of Alabama New York (state) lawyers 19th-century American judges 19th-century American lawyers {{Alabama-state-judge-stub