Representative Peter Hitchcock

Peter Marshall Hitchcock (October 19, 1781 – March 4, 1853) was an American attorney, teacher, farmer, soldier, legislator, and jurist whose public career spanned the formative decades of both Ohio and the United States. Best known for his long tenure on the Supreme Court of Ohio, where he served for twenty‑eight years, including twenty‑one as chief justice, he also served one term in the United States House of Representatives and played a leading role in framing Ohio’s Constitution of 1851. Some sources erroneously give his date of death as March 4, 1854.

Hitchcock was born in Cheshire, New Haven County, Connecticut, on October 19, 1781, the youngest son of Valentine Hitchcock (1741–1809), a tailor and landowner, and Sarah Hotchkiss (1743–1802). Raised in a New England household that combined artisan work with landholding, he early became accustomed to both manual labor and study. To finance his education he taught in a district school during the winter months and worked on a farm in the summer. He entered Yale College as a sophomore, pursued classical studies, and was graduated in 1801. After college he read law with Barzillai Slosson of Kent, Connecticut (Yale 1791), and was admitted to the bar in 1804, commencing legal practice in his native Cheshire. On December 12, 1805, in Cheshire, he married Nabbe (often written Nabby) Cook (1784–1867); the couple would eventually have ten children—five sons and five daughters—one son and one daughter dying in infancy. Two of their sons later followed their father to Yale.

In 1806 Hitchcock and his wife moved west to the Connecticut Western Reserve, settling in Burton, Geauga County, Ohio, where they became one of the first families in that township. There he combined farming with the establishment of a law practice and the pursuit of teaching. He improved his farm while building a regional reputation at the bar, and he became the first teacher at Burton Academy, an institution that in time became part of what is now Case Western Reserve University. As the population of Geauga County increased, Hitchcock’s legal practice expanded correspondingly. His style as an advocate was described as colloquial and logical rather than ornate or rhetorical, a departure from the more florid oratory common in the period. Whether appearing before a jury, a justice of the peace, or the judges of the higher courts, he was accorded close and respectful attention.

Hitchcock entered public life in Ohio as the state’s political institutions were still taking shape. He was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1810. In 1812 he was elected to the Ohio Senate, in which he served until 1815, and he was chosen speaker (president) of the Senate in 1815. During this period he was twice a candidate in legislative balloting for the United States Senate—once in 1814 to fill the unexpired term of Thomas Worthington and again in 1815 for the full term to succeed Joseph Kerr—but in both contests he failed to secure sufficient votes. In addition to his civil offices, he held militia commissions during the era of the War of 1812, being commissioned lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Regiment, Ohio State Militia, in 1814 and promoted to major general of the Fourth Division, Ohio State Militia, in 1816.

At the national level, Hitchcock was elected as a Democratic‑Republican from Ohio’s 6th congressional district to the Fifteenth Congress, serving in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1817, to March 3, 1819. As a member of the Republican (Democratic‑Republican) Party representing Ohio, he contributed to the legislative process during one term in office, participating in the democratic process and representing the interests of his constituents at a time of post‑War of 1812 expansion and debate over internal improvements and national finance. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1818 and returned to his legal and judicial career in Ohio.

In 1819 the Ohio legislature appointed Hitchcock a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio for a seven‑year term, and he was reappointed in 1826. In the early years of his service, before 1831, the Supreme Court sat in panels that traveled the state on circuit, with different panels holding sessions simultaneously in various counties. Hitchcock generally traveled his circuit on horseback or in his own “Yankee wagon,” arriving at county seats by midday and proceeding at once to the clerk’s office. Chancery cases, demurrers, and other papers for the court would be brought to his room and were usually settled by the time court opened the next morning. His method in preparing to hear a case was to identify the primary question at issue, consult the relevant law books, and then develop his own line of reasoning. In court he did not refuse to hear argument, but unless a case was particularly important or he signaled a desire for extended advocacy, members of the bar often chose to submit directly to his searching examinations. It was rare that the court’s business in a county was not completed in a single day. After 1831 the Supreme Court of Ohio adopted the practice of sitting en banc at the state capital, but Hitchcock’s reputation for efficiency and analytical rigor continued to define his judicial work.

Partisan maneuvering in the legislature interrupted Hitchcock’s judicial service at several points. In 1833 political opposition kept him off the Supreme Court, and he instead returned to the Ohio Senate, where he was again elected speaker. He was reappointed to another seven‑year term on the Supreme Court in 1835, only to be removed again in 1842 amid renewed partisanship. In 1845 he was once more appointed to a seven‑year term. Over the course of these appointments he served a total of twenty‑eight years on the Supreme Court of Ohio, the last twenty‑one as chief justice, making him one of the most influential jurists in the state’s early history. During this period he also took part in national politics as a Whig, serving as a presidential elector in 1844 on the Clay–Frelinghuysen ticket. His standing in the legal and academic communities was recognized by the conferral of honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Marietta College in 1845 and Western Reserve College in 1849. He voluntarily retired from the bench in 1852 at the end of his fourth term.

In 1850 Hitchcock was elected as a Whig delegate to the Ohio constitutional convention called to revise the state’s original 1802 constitution. While continuing to discharge his duties on the bench, he played a central role in the reorganization of the state’s judicial system and was widely referred to as the “Father of the Constitution of 1851.” Among the significant debates in which he participated was the question of granting the governor a veto power. As a committed Whig and advocate of legislative supremacy, he opposed the veto, arguing that such a power implied distrust of the people’s capacity for self‑government and of their ability to choose worthy legislators. He contended that if the governor were treated as the sole representative of the whole people, logically the legislature might as well be dispensed with and lawmaking concentrated in the executive. The convention ultimately declined to grant the governor veto power in the new constitution, a result consistent with Hitchcock’s position.

Hitchcock’s family connections extended into Ohio’s political leadership; he was an uncle of Seabury Ford, who became the first governor of Ohio from the Western Reserve. In his later years he continued to reside in Burton, maintaining his farm and remaining a respected figure in state affairs even after his retirement from the court. He died on March 4, 1853, in Painesville, Lake County, Ohio, while stopping at the home of his eldest son on his way home from Columbus to Burton. Peter Marshall Hitchcock was interred in Welton Cemetery in Burton, Ohio, leaving a legacy as a leading early Ohio jurist, legislator, and constitutional reformer.