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BENJAMIN R.
CURTIS was born on November 4, 1809, in Watertown, Massachusetts.
He attended Harvard College, graduating in 1829, and entered
Harvard Law School. Curtis established a law practice
in Northfield, Massachusetts, in 1831 and received his
law degree in 1832. In 1834, he moved to Boston and joined
a law firm. He was elected to the Massachusetts State
Legislature in 1849, where he was appointed chairman of
a committee charged with the reform of state judicial
procedures. Two years later, Curtis presented the Massachusetts
Practice Act of 1851. It was considered a model of judicial
reform and was approved by the legislature without amendment.
President Millard Fillmore nominated Curtis to the Supreme
Court of the United States on December 11, 1851, and the
Senate confirmed the appointment on December 29, 1851.
Curtis resigned from the Supreme Court on September 30,
1857, after almost six years of service, and returned
to his law practice in Boston. During the following fifteen
years, he argued cases before the Supreme Court on a number
of occasions. He died on September 15, 1874, at the age
of sixty-four. |
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