Representative John MacCrate

John MacCrate (March 29, 1885 – June 9, 1976) was a Scottish-born American lawyer, Republican politician, United States Representative from New York, and long-serving justice of the New York Supreme Court. He served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1919 to 1921 and later sat for many years on the state’s highest trial court and its Appellate Division. His congressional service took place during a significant period in American history, immediately following World War I, when the nation was grappling with postwar readjustment and major political and social change.

MacCrate was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, on March 29, 1885. In 1893 he migrated with his mother to the United States, joining his father, who had previously emigrated and established a home in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Growing up in Brooklyn, he was educated in the local public schools and attended Commercial High School, reflecting the family’s integration into the civic and educational life of their adopted city. His early years in Greenpoint, a working- and middle-class community, helped shape his understanding of the concerns of urban constituents that he would later represent in public office.

Pursuing a legal career, MacCrate enrolled in the law department of New York University, from which he graduated in 1906. In the same year he was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in New York City. His early legal work, undertaken in one of the nation’s most active legal markets, provided the foundation for his later roles in both elective office and the judiciary. As a practicing attorney, he developed the professional reputation and political connections that would lead to his participation in national party politics and, ultimately, to his election to Congress.

MacCrate became active in Republican Party affairs and emerged as a figure of growing influence within his party in New York. He served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1916, held in Chicago, where the party nominated Charles Evans Hughes for the presidency, and again as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1920, which nominated Warren G. Harding. His selection as a delegate on two occasions underscored his standing within the party and his engagement with national political issues during a transformative era in American public life.

In 1918, MacCrate was nominated in the primaries by both the Republican and Democratic Parties, an indication of his broad appeal and local prominence. Running as a Republican, he was elected to the Sixty-sixth United States Congress and served as a Representative from New York from March 4, 1919, to December 30, 1920. During his single term in the House of Representatives, he participated in the legislative process at a time marked by debates over post–World War I policy, economic adjustment, and domestic reform. As a member of the Republican Party, he represented the interests of his Brooklyn constituents and took part in the democratic process in a Congress that addressed the nation’s transition from wartime to peacetime conditions. He resigned his seat on December 30, 1920, prior to the formal end of the term.

MacCrate’s resignation from Congress coincided with his elevation to the bench. In 1920 he was elected a justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, the state’s principal trial court of general jurisdiction. He was subsequently reelected to that court in 1934 and again in 1948, reflecting sustained public and professional confidence in his judicial service. Over the course of his judicial career, he advanced to serve in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, where he sat until December 31, 1955, when he reached the mandatory retirement age. His tenure on the Appellate Division placed him at the center of significant civil and criminal appeals in New York’s complex legal system.

Following his retirement from regular judicial service, MacCrate continued to contribute to the administration of justice. He served as an official referee of the New York State Supreme Court in 1956, 1957, and again in June 1958, handling referred matters and drawing on his extensive experience on the bench. This post-retirement role allowed him to remain active in the legal community and to assist in managing the court’s caseload during a period of growing judicial demand in the state.

Throughout his life, MacCrate maintained close ties to the Brooklyn community in which he had grown up. He was for many years a parishioner at the Greenpoint Methodist Church, reflecting a long-standing connection to local religious and civic life. John MacCrate died in Brooklyn, New York, on June 9, 1976. He was interred in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens, New York, closing a life that had spanned immigration, professional advancement, congressional service, and more than three decades on the New York Supreme Court.