Judge John Grimké

https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/grimke-john-faucheraud/

Legislator, jurist. Grimké was born in Charleston on December 16, 1752, the son of merchant John Paul Grimké and his wife, Mary Faucheraud. After receiving his bachelor of arts degree from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1774, Grimké returned to Charleston. His marriage to Mary Smith on October 12, 1784, produced fourteen children, including noted abolitionists Angelina and Sarah Grimké.

His judicial prominence stemmed from early political and military involvement. As a student in England in 1774, Grimké joined twenty-eight other Americans in protesting the Boston Port Bill. Shortly after returning to Charleston in September 1775, Grimké organized an artillery unit for service in the Revolutionary War. Rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel by 1779, he was captured at the fall of Charleston. He was later imprisoned by the British for allegedly violating his parole, but escaped to join General Nathanael Greene’s army, where he served the remainder of the war.

In 1782 Grimké began the first of five terms representing the city parishes of St. Philip’s and St. Michael’s in the General Assembly, including a term as Speaker of the House from 1785 to 1786. Soon after the war, the legislature revived state law courts and named Grimké an associate justice of the Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions in March 1783. Many upstate citizens loyal to Britain during the war feared the nascent judiciary would extract revenge and lack impartiality. At his first grand jury charge in Camden in November 1783, Grimké sought to calm those concerns by declaring “We are all Americans” and that “our passions” were the only enemy of legal justice. Soon after his appointment, the legislature created county courts to hear minor cases, where laymen versed in local custom presided. To provide courtroom standards, Grimké published The South Carolina Justice of Peace in 1784 as a guide for officers of the new judiciary. In 1790 Grimké published the first updated digest of state laws in fifty years, The Public Laws of the State of South Carolina. Listing relevant and applicable laws in the period between the Revolutionary War and ratification of the Constitution, his digest provided a groundwork for judicial uniformity and the professionalization of legal study in South Carolina.

Grimké also resisted outside intimidation of the young state judiciary. In 1785 he encountered hostile debtors on his circuit in Camden. Grimké dismissed the “Camden Court House Riot” as an “illegal measure” and maintained the legitimacy of the court. As a delegate to the state constitutional convention in May 1790, Grimké introduced the provisions separating the judiciary from the legislature and requiring a two-thirds vote for judicial impeachment. In 1811 he took advantage of this proviso to defeat impeachment charges brought against him by political opponents.

During his thirty-six years on the bench, Grimké helped establish fundamental principles of South Carolina jurisprudence by advocating professionalization of legal study, uniformity of law, and judicial independence. After an extended illness, Grimké died in Long Branch, New Jersey, on August 9, 1819.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Faucheraud_Grimk%C3%A9

Jurist educated in the law in London. Signer, with Benjamin Franklin, of a 1774 petition to the king protesting the Boston Port Law.

Father of Angelina, Sarah, and Thomas Grimke.

A judge and member of Charleston South Carolina high society, with a plantation in Beaufort. Wealthy due to a good marriage, inheritance, successful plantation management, investment, and acquiring of lands through litigation.

Wrote Public Laws of the State of South Carolina, which served for several decades as the standard work on the subject.

He died at a spa in Long Branch, attended by his daughter Sarah.

The name Grimke came from Huguenot ancestors. Many Huguenots had come to South Carolina in the 17th century.

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Family Sheet

HUSBAND

        Name: John Faucheraud Grimke

        Born: 16 Dec 1752

     Married: 12 Oct 1784

        Died: 9 Aug 1819

WIFE

        Name: Mary Smith

        Born: 7 Feb 1764

        Died: 21 Jul 1839

      Father: Thomas Smith

      Mother: Sarah Moore

CHILDREN

        Name: John Grimke Dr.

        Born: 15 Aug 1785

        Died: 30 Jul 1864

        Wife: Sophia Caroline Ladson

        Name: Thomas Smith Grimke

        Born: 26 Sep 1786

        Died: 12 Oct 1834

        Wife: Sarah Daniel Drayton

        Name: Benjamin Smith Grimke

        Born: 22 Apr 1788

        Died: 29 Aug 1794

        Name: Mary Grimke

        Born: 27 Nov 1789

        Died: 10 Sep 1865

        Name: Frederick Grimke

        Born: 1 Sep 1791

        Died: 6 Mar 1863 at Ohio

        Name: Sarah Moore Grimke

        Born: 26 Nov 1792

        Died: 23 Dec 1873

        Name: Ann Rutledge Grimke

        Born: 1 May 1794

        Died: 20 May 1794

        Name: Ann Rutledge Grimke

        Born: 21 Jun 1795

        Died: 30 Dec 1882

     Husband: Thomas Drayton Frost

        Name: Elizabeth Caroline Grimke

        Born: 28 Mar 1797

        Died: 30 Mar 1874

        Name: Benjamin Secundus Grimke

        Born: 29 Aug 1798

        Died: 18 Nov 1825

        Wife: Mary Augusta Barron

        Name: Henry Grimke

        Born: 3 Jan 1801

        Died: 28 Sep 1852

        Wife: Selena Sarah Simmons

        Name: Charles Faucheraud Grimke

        Born: 9 Jun 1802

        Died: 3 Mar 1857

        Name: Louisa Grimke

        Born: 18 Nov 1803

        Died: 23 Nov 1803

        Name: Angelina Emily Grimke

        Born: 20 Feb 1805

        Died: 26 Oct 1879

     Husband: Theodore Dwight Weld

John Faucheraud Grimké (Dec. 16, 1752 - Aug. 9, 1819) was an American jurist who served as the Senior Associate Justice, the equivalent of Chief Justice, of the South Carolina Supreme Court. He also served in the South Carolina state legislature. He was mayor of Charleston, South Carolina from 1786 to 1788.

Educated in the law in London, Grimké signed, with Benjamin Franklin and others, a 1774 petition to King George III and the British government protesting the Boston Port Law. At the beginning of hostilities, he returned home and fought through the American Revolutionary War as lieutenant colonel of artillery. He served as an officer under Colonel Samuel Elbert, under the extended Georgia command of Major General Robert Howe, in 1778.

Grimké was elected a judge of the superior court in 1783, and in 1799 became senior associate. Princeton gave him the degree of LL.D in 1789. As a member of the legislature, he served as speaker of the house in 1785-'6, and a member of the convention of 1788 that adopted the Federal constitution.

Grimké died at a spa in Long Branch, New Jersey attended by his daughter Sarah.

The name Grimké derives from Huguenot ancestors who came to South Carolina in the 17th century.

Grimké was a member of Charleston’s upper class and was well known in society. His wife, Mary Smith Grimké, came from a wealthy Charleston family, and the couple maintained a large slave population at their plantation in Beaufort, South Carolina. Grimke was wealthy not only through his good marriage, but through a family inheritance and his personally successful plantation management, investment, and land acquisition. The Grimkés were religious and attended Episcopal services.

John and Mary Grimké had fourteen children, three of whom died in infancy. His children include attorney and reformer Thomas Smith Grimké and Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld, noted orators and abolitionists. His bi-racial grandchildren, through his son Henry, include journalist and diplomat Archibald Grimké, and Francis J. Grimké, a Presbyterian minister who graduated from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) and Princeton Theological Seminary.

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=103400592