Scope and Content Note
The papers of James Kent (1763-1874) span the period 1779-1854, with the bulk of the material concentrated in the years 1798-1847. The collection consists of correspondence, travel journals, and a register of law cases entered by James Kent and his associate, Gilbert Livingston. Kent’s life as lawyer, traveler, and family man is well documented in the collection, and there are records of his military service in the New York state militia and his election to public office.
Kent corresponded with many of the political and judicial leaders of the period, including John Quincy Adams, Simeon Baldwin, George Bancroft, William Carroll, Henry Clay, David Daggett, Edward Everett, William Johnson, Francis Lieber, William H. Seward, Benjamin Silliman, Joseph Story, Daniel Webster, and William Wirt. A letter to Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton, wife of Alexander Hamilton, dated Dec. 10, 1832, includes the draft of “Chancellor Kent’s Memories of Alexander Hamilton.” In 1847, Simeon Baldwin prepared a similar sketch of James Kent’s life for Kent’s son, William.
The greater part of Kent’s correspondence is with family members—his wife, Elizabeth, his brother, Moss, his son, William, and his brother-in-law, Theodorus Bailey. The originals of many of Kent’s letters to family members are included in the collection. The letters refer frequently to Kent’s interest in the classics.
Among other papers included in Kent’s correspondence files are diplomas, awards, a military commission, certificates of election to public office, and documents related to his career as a jurist. These documents and all of Kent’s correspondence have been indexed.
A single register records law suits entered by the law firms of Livingston and Kent and of Livingston and Thompson. Kent’s reputation as a legal writer rests chiefly upon his four-volume Commentaries on American Law, a work that he began preparing for publication only after his retirement but that was based on his lectures as a Columbia law professor. His outstanding achievements as a jurist were recorded by his long-time associate William Johnson in three sets of reports: ; and Cases Argued and Determined in the Court for the Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors, 1799-1803 (3 vols.); Report of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature and in the Court for Trial of Impeachments and the Correction of Errors, February 1806-February 1823(20 vols.); and Cases of the State Court of Chancery, March 1814-July 1823(7 vols.). No manuscripts pertaining to these works are in the collection.
Kent kept detailed accounts of his travels between 1793 and 1847, annotating them in later years and adding pertinent newspaper clippings. The fifteen volumes in the collection describe his journeys that ranged from Quebec to Richmond, Virginia. Volume 14 of the Journals series contains an account of William Kent’s 1848 journey to his father’s birthplace.
Included in the Correspondence and Other Papers series is a photocopy of a journal Kent maintained in the back pages of Tobias Lear’s Observation on the River Potomack (New York, 1793) while on a trip to Washington in 1793. The original of the volume is held by the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division.