James Kent

James Kent (July 31, 1763 – December 12, 1847) was an American jurist, New York legislator, legal scholar, and first Professor of Law at Columbia College. His Commentaries on American Law (based on lectures first delivered at Columbia in 1794, and further lectures in the 1820s) became the formative American law book in the antebellum era (published in 14 editions before 1896) and also helped establish the tradition of law reporting in America. He is sometimes called the "American Blackstone". Early life Kent was born in what was then the town of Fredericksburg (the present-day towns of Patterson, Kent, Carmel, Southeast and Pawling) in Dutchess County, New York. His father, Moss Kent, was a lawyer in that county, as well as the first Surrogate of nearby Rensselaer County, New York. Despite interruptions caused by the American Revolutionary War, Kent graduated from Yale College in 1781, having helped establish the Phi Beta Kappa Society there in 1780. Returning to New York, Kent read law under Egbert Benson (then the state Attorney General and later a state judge). Early career Admitted to the New York bar in January 1785, Kent began practicing law in Poughkeepsie, New York and neighboring areas. Voters in Dutchess County elected him in 1791 and 1792-93 as their representative in the New York State Assembly. However, he had married and supporting his growing family based on his scholarship and nearly rural legal practice proved difficult.