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John Hurd to Joshua Loring Jr.1
Docno: LJA02d063
Recipient: Loring, Joshua Jr.
Date: 1769-04-13
[dateline] Portsmo. 13th. April 1769
[salute] Dear Sir
The inclosd Informations were preparing by Mr. Claggett,2 and under Consideration of Mr. Parker the Deputy Judge of Admiralty,
{p. 260}
when he received a Letter from the Honorable Judge Auchmuty suspending him from the Office.3 Mr. Claggett returnd them to the Surveyor General, and by his directions I forward them to you, to be laid before Mr. Auchmuty, who will know best to putt them in proper order; and if he thinks the Evidence sufficient forward them for Execution, as the Governor has already advisd. There will be further and more particular Information soon collected from some of the principal people at Law which shall be immediately sent along. I am with great Esteem and regard Dear Sir Your Most hum Servt.
[signed] John Hurd
Mr. Claggett is about leaving Us and sails soon for England. We shall miss him in some of our Affairs.
P.S. You have also inclosd a Diary of Willm. Ham Assistant Deputy, which may be of some use; after shewing it to the Judge You'll please to return it to the Surveyor General's Office.
1. RC, presumably in Hurd's hand. Adams Papers, Microfilms, Reel No. 185. Docketed by JA: “Mr. Hurd's Letter.” Enclosures not found. Hurd (1727–1809), Harvard 1747, was the son of Jacob Hurd, Boston goldsmith. After an unstable commercial career in Boston he developed New Hampshire land interests, became Wentworth's personal secretary, and held other administrative positions. He became an early settler in the upper Connecticut Valley and at the Revolution was a patriot. After losing in several political struggles, he returned to Boston in 1779, where he finished his life in the commercial community. 12 Sibley-Shipton, Harvard Graduates
164–171. Loring (1744–1789) was Deputy Surveyor of the Woods, as well as the last royal sheriff of Suffolk County. A tory, he is best known as General Howe's Commissary of Prisoners, a post for which he has received much abuse. Stark, Loyalists of Mass.
424–425; Jones, Loyalists of Mass.
199–200.
2. Wyseman Clagett (1721–1784), Attorney General of New Hampshire from 1765 to 1769. Son of an English barrister, he had been admitted an attorney in the King's Bench before his emigration to Antigua in 1748. He came to Portsmouth in 1758, where he took up practice and was soon made a justice of the peace. His severity with petty offenders was such that “I'll Clagett you,” became a popular threat. In 1769, as Hurd's postscript, below, indicates, he moved to England. Upon his return in 1771, he took up the patriot cause, serving in the Provincial Congresses and later on the State Committee of Safety and Council. From 1781 to 1784 he was a special Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court and Solicitor General.
DAB
.
3. William Parker (1703–1781), Harvard A.M. (hon.) 1763, Deputy Admiralty Judge for the Province of New Hampshire. Admitted to the bar in 1732, Parker served in a variety of legislative and judicial posts, ending his active career as a Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court (1771–1775). Charles H. Bell, The Bench and Bar of New Hampshire 26–28 (Boston, 1894). Since New Hampshire was under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Vice Admiralty Judge, Parker owed his authority to a deputation from Judge Auchmuty. He was apparently also commissioned by Governor Wentworth. See Ubbelohde, Vice Admiralty Courts
153–154; Jeremy Belknap, The History of New Hampshire, 1:421 (Dover, 2d edn., 1831). The cause of his suspension has not been determined, but he was still in office in 1773. Ibid. He had also sat on a case appealed from New Hampshire to Auchmuty's new District Court of Vice Admiralty at Boston in 1772. Lawrence S. Mayo, John Langdon of New Hampshire 42 (Concord, 1937). See p. 104 above.
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/