Job Durfee (September 20, 1790 – July 26, 1847) was a politician and

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

from

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Born at Tiverton, he graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1813 and was admitted to the

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and commenced practice in Tiverton. He was a member of the

Rhode Island House of Representatives The Rhode Island House of Representatives is the lower house of the Rhode Island General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Rhode Island, the upper house being the Rhode Island Senate. It is composed of 75 members, elected t ...

from 1816 to 1820, and was elected as a

Democratic-Republican The Democratic-Republican Party, known at the time as the Republican Party and also referred to as the Jeffersonian Republican Party among other names, was an American political party founded by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the early ...

to the Seventeenth Congress and was reelected as an

Adams-Clay Republican The National Republican Party, also known as the Anti-Jacksonian Party or simply Republicans, was a political party in the United States that evolved from a conservative-leaning faction of the Democratic-Republican Party that supported John Qu ...

to the Eighteenth Congress, serving from March 4, 1821 to March 3, 1825. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1824 to the Nineteenth Congress and for election in 1828 to the Twenty-first Congress; he was again a member of the State house of representatives from 1826 to 1829, serving as

speaker Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** I ...

from 1827 to 1829. He declined to be a candidate for reelection and resumed the practice of law; in May 1833 he was elected

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of the

Rhode Island Supreme Court The Rhode Island Supreme Court is the court of last resort in the U.S. State of Rhode Island. The Court consists of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices, all selected by the Governor of Rhode Island from candidates vetted by the Judicial No ...

.
Manual - the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
' (1891), p. 208-13. He was chief justice from June 1835 until his death in Tiverton in 1847. As chief justice, he presided over the trial of the last person executed in Rhode Island, John Gordon. Durfee's interment was in the family burying ground at Quaker Neck, near Tiverton. Durfee was the author of ''What Cheer'', a poem in nine

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s; of an

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, ''The Influences of Scientific Discovery and Invention on Social and Political Progress, or

Roger Williams Roger Williams (21 September 1603between 27 January and 15 March 1683) was an English-born New England Puritan minister, theologian, and author who founded Providence Plantations, which became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantation ...

in Exile'' (1843), under the

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"Theaptes;" and of a philosophical work, entitled ''The Panidea'' (1846).

References

* ''Complete Works of Job Durfee, with a Memoir of his Life'' (Providence, 1849), edited by his son * Gibson, ''Discourse on the Character and Writings of Chief Justice Durfee'' (Providence, 1848) {{DEFAULTSORT:Durfee, Job People from Tiverton, Rhode Island 1790 births 1847 deaths Brown University alumni Members of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Chief Justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court Speakers of the Rhode Island House of Representatives Democratic-Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Rhode Island 19th-century American poets American male poets 19th-century American male writers 19th-century American politicians 19th-century American judges